Productivity is such a bullshit idea… Like how do you measure productivity? In GDP?
Yes, but normalised for buying power and per capita. Where I live the last several decades saw an increase by +250% in normalised economic output per capita, while at the same time real normalised wages stayed the same. Which marks a stark decoupling of economic output and wages (thus usually also pensions, taxes (public budgets), sometimes health care - all linked to wages) that did not exist before. What happens to all those gains? They get transfered upwards to a few rich people, while the system is now only based on less than a third of the economic output… Alas! “We can’t afford proper pensions, social security or even just maintaining the existing infrastructure anymore” is the most sang song everywhere the neoliberal insanity rules.
And alongside it come fairy tales about demographics (how should the working people afford double the amount of people that need support? easy… when everyone of them is 6x as productive -> see output per capita still more than 3 times as high) and a lot of agitation pitting the “lazy stupid youth” against the “greedy old generation” when in reality they get all fucked over by the same small minority (with the old ones just having a better buffer because they already worked when the system wasn’t that broken).
Long story short: Industrialisation killed so many jobs… but in reality the people still working suddenly made enough to provide for the rest because of massive production gains (and so children didn’t need to work anymore, women could stay home and raise the kids etc). Automation killed so many jobs, yet again the actual productivity per capita massively increased. In general development of tech but also society happened and increased life expectancy as well as productivity side by side. And now we are talking about the impact of AI. Guess what… the problem is again not AI. It’s having changed the system to the point where workers get exactly nothing from productivity gains because we need to push imaginary stock market numbers and shareholder profits instead. Well done Reagan, Mulroney, Thatcher, Mitterand, Kohl and countless others…
Yes, but normalised for buying power and per capita. Where I live the last several decades saw an increase by +250% in normalised economic output per capita, while at the same time real normalised wages stayed the same. Which marks a stark decoupling of economic output and wages (thus usually also pensions, taxes (public budgets), sometimes health care - all linked to wages) that did not exist before. What happens to all those gains? They get transfered upwards to a few rich people, while the system is now only based on less than a third of the economic output… Alas! “We can’t afford proper pensions, social security or even just maintaining the existing infrastructure anymore” is the most sang song everywhere the neoliberal insanity rules.
And alongside it come fairy tales about demographics (how should the working people afford double the amount of people that need support? easy… when everyone of them is 6x as productive -> see output per capita still more than 3 times as high) and a lot of agitation pitting the “lazy stupid youth” against the “greedy old generation” when in reality they get all fucked over by the same small minority (with the old ones just having a better buffer because they already worked when the system wasn’t that broken).
Long story short: Industrialisation killed so many jobs… but in reality the people still working suddenly made enough to provide for the rest because of massive production gains (and so children didn’t need to work anymore, women could stay home and raise the kids etc). Automation killed so many jobs, yet again the actual productivity per capita massively increased. In general development of tech but also society happened and increased life expectancy as well as productivity side by side. And now we are talking about the impact of AI. Guess what… the problem is again not AI. It’s having changed the system to the point where workers get exactly nothing from productivity gains because we need to push imaginary stock market numbers and shareholder profits instead. Well done Reagan, Mulroney, Thatcher, Mitterand, Kohl and countless others…