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Bifurcation is the division of one thing into two branches. Roads and rivers are both examples. Another is the evolutionary path of a species; for instance, the first of our distant ancestors to crawl onto dry land would have branched off from their fishier relatives who kept to the water.
The bifurcation of the human race is a recurrent theme in science fiction. In the Time Machine, HG Wells wrote of the childlike Eloi (descendants of the upper class) and the brutish Morlocks (descendants of the working class). Published in 1895, Wells’ dystopian vision played on contemporary fears of an ever-widening social divide.
In the 20th century, as working conditions improved and opportunities expanded, those fears diminished – as did the attraction of enforced equality through socialism. We came to accept the idea of different people on different rungs of the ladder so long as it was the same ladder (with enough room for all to climb upwards).
But according to Neil Irwin for the New York Times, 21st century capitalism – as exemplified by the tech industry – is moving to a very different model:
“…major companies have… chosen to bifurcate their work force, contracting out much of the labor that goes into their products to other companies, which compete by lowering costs. It’s not just janitors and security guards. In Silicon Valley, the people who test operating systems for bugs, review social media posts that may violate guidelines, and screen thousands of job applications are unlikely to receive a paycheck directly from the company they are ultimately working for.”
He illustrates this great shift by comparing the experience of two women – Gail Evans, who worked as a janitor at Kodak Eastman in the 1980s and Marta Ramos, currently one of the cleaners at Apple’s HQ in California:
“The $16.60 per hour Ms. Ramos earns as a janitor at Apple works out to about the same in inflation-adjusted terms as what Ms. Evans earned 35 years ago.”
So decades of zero wage growth – as is typical of working class America. But that’s not the worst of it. As a proper employee, Ms Evans was part of the company – with access to opportunities for promotion that are not available to outside contractors. Her own rise through the ranks to senior executive level was an exceptional one, but evidently not impossible.
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