>But couldn't the rise of the service economy itself be PARTIALLY responsible
>for the post '73 decline in real wages, since service jobs on average pay
>less than manufacturing jobs?
"The service economy" is a complicated thing - it includes bedpan cleaners and neurosurgeons, and unionization and better laws could raise the wages at the low end. (Nothing "natural" about low wages in the service sector, is there?) And its rise is also a complicated thing - yes, there were job losses in U.S. manufacturing because of foreign competition and plant relocation (though more of the distress in the 1970s and 1980s came from Japan and Europe, not low-wage countries, and the U.S. auto and steel industries were sitting ducks by about 1970), but it's difficult to separate that from the increase in competition in general throughout the economy as the Golden Age oligopolies fell apart, and from displacement because of automation.
Besides, I did concede 20-25% of the decline in the real wage to "global" causes, didn't I? But though the world has "globalized" even more over the last 5 years, the real hourly wage in the U.S. troughed in August 1994. It's up over 6% since then, which brings it back to levels last seen in March 1987, and before that, in October 1981, and before that, in December 1966.
Doug