Yep, this is the cause of people bemoaning the demise of the blue collar middle class.  The one borne by Henry Ford and the idea workers earn enough to buy into the middle class which existed up to the sixties in the US and Europe but declined with the ascent of Japan and other regions which had lagged for various reasons ( there was a lot of parity in the early XX century, Mexico, Norway, Cuba, Poland were not far from ach other economically).<p>But you still hear the reverberations of people wondering where the blue collar middle class went.  It went to other countries and made the desperately poor there into local middle class.<p>Still globalization is demonized when it has lifted millions of people from poverty.  On the other hand economically mature nations have not prepared their workforce for these transitions by providing training and &quot;insurance&quot; during the decades long transition, as sectors change.