Here is the most malignant threat to our personal freedom, particularly as the balance of power in the workplace has been shifted so dramatically from worker to boss.

Steam power did not merely spin cotton and roll iron; early in the new century, it also multiplied ten times over the amount of paper that a single worker could produce in a day.

In other words, the study notes, at the peak of their earning power, the average worker with only a high school diploma earns only about as much as a college graduate one year out of school.