This has always been the case and intellectual labor isn’t special other than the training lacking in some parts of the world. The owner class has always worked to lower the standard of living in the US with only organized labor preventing or slowing it down. Perhaps a secondary factor standing in the way of this process used to be the restriction on movement of capital prior to free trade taking over the world. That meant the owner class would face the contradictory effect of suppressing labor costs - decreasing demand for the goods they sell and profit from. Now that owner capital has moved around the world however, they can utilize the aggregate demand of many countries to keep themselves rich, even if there are fewer people in each country that can afford their products. I think in effect this frees them to depress wages in the wealthiest countries in the absence of strong organized labor.
This has always been the case and intellectual labor isn’t special other than the training lacking in some parts of the world. The owner class has always worked to lower the standard of living in the US with only organized labor preventing or slowing it down. Perhaps a secondary factor standing in the way of this process used to be the restriction on movement of capital prior to free trade taking over the world. That meant the owner class would face the contradictory effect of suppressing labor costs - decreasing demand for the goods they sell and profit from. Now that owner capital has moved around the world however, they can utilize the aggregate demand of many countries to keep themselves rich, even if there are fewer people in each country that can afford their products. I think in effect this frees them to depress wages in the wealthiest countries in the absence of strong organized labor.