[ETH_start]

The empirical evidence consistently shows labor unions reducing productivity. The real problem is that a significant fraction of the population benefits from the economic rent extraction that unions engage in, so they have a strong motivation to argue that have some redeeming quality.

[pchangr]

Do you have a link?

I.e. all the Nordic countries have a majority of the population of unionized labor

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1356735/labor-unions-mos...

[ETH_start]

If you search Google Scholar you can find numerous studies on the impact of unionization. Generally any non-market intervention is found to impede the efficiency of the economy.

As for the Nordic countries, they are a cautionary tale. Singapore now has a huge lead on Norway in per capita GDP, despite the latter having previously been far ahead of the former, and the latter having been one of the largest oil exporters in the world for several decades:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...

Sweden similarly has failed to maintain its world leading position in global rankings:

https://iea.org.uk/publications/research/scandinavian-unexce...

[pchangr]

That was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

Personally I don’t care about a country productivity as much as I care about quality of life but I think that’s an entirely different discussion and it’s much more subjective as quality of life means different things for different people :)

[TaylorAlexander]

Let’s say it were true that labor unions reduced productivity, but that they also increased quality of life for workers. I often think we need to stop focusing so much on productivity to the detriment of life and human well being. Or stated more directly, it is non obvious to me that reduced productivity is inherently bad.

[ETH_start]

Productivity growth is the overriding determinant of quality of life over any extended period of time.

Take two countries at the same starting level of per capita GDP, and give one a GDP growth rate of 2%, and the other a rate of 4%, and within 30 years the latter will have twice the per capita GDP of the former.

It's very hard for a country with half the per capita productivity of another country to match their quality of life.

[deprecative]

Productivity has gone up while quality of life has gone down over the last half century. Yeah, we can get groceries delivered now but we're never not working or preparing for work. We have worse economic realities and the cost of living is sky rocketing.

Sure doesn't seem like that's holding these days.

[ETH_start]

Quality of life has seen huge gains according to studies on the matter.

[TaylorAlexander]

It seems clear that if you achieve increased productivity by ensuring that 90% of the population worked, say, 60 hours a week, with no maternity leave or PTO, no large amount of time to spend outdoors or with loved ones, you could have a productive economy full of miserable people. You can have scenarios where the quality of life is very high for 10% of the people while it is very low for the vast majority.

> It's very hard for a country with half the per capita productivity of another country to match their quality of life.

A very easy thing to say, but unsupported by the facts. According to Wikipedia [1] the GDP per Capita for the USA is roughly double that of France ($80k vs $43k) but according to happiness index levels[2], France is at 97% the happiness of the USA.

Notably France’s culture focuses on time with people, which is free and makes people very happy.

Certainly productivity matters to a point. You can’t be happy if you can’t even eat. But beyond a certain point, grinding for additional productivity, especially when the gains are not going to those workers, does not increase happiness. And in fact it is clear that you can have half the GDP per capita and be just as happy.

I should note that “GDP Is Not a Measure of Human Well-Being” is such a well discussed topic that it is easy to find articles on this point [3] and Wikipedia has a section on this fact. [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

[2] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/happiness/

[3] https://hbr.org/2019/10/gdp-is-not-a-measure-of-human-well-b...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product?wprov=s...

[ETH_start]

>>It seems clear that if you achieve increased productivity by ensuring that 90% of the population worked, say, 60 hours a week, with no maternity leave or PTO, no large amount of time to spend outdoors or with loved ones, you could have a productive economy full of miserable people.

In the absence of mandated benefits, working conditions still improve over time, just not via cookie cutter rules that regiment the employment terms that workers and employers are allowed to reach.

People being miserable is not good for long-term productivity so that is not the outcome we should seek.

But to address your underlying point, you cannot sacrifice everything for productivity, it's true, but giving up mandated collective bargaining — that puts existing employees at an enormous negotiating advantage over outside applicants, while severely limiting basic contract freedom — doesn't seem like it provides any obvious societal advantages, while it does clearly reduce productivity.

>A very easy thing to say, but unsupported by the facts. According to Wikipedia [1] the GDP per Capita for the USA is roughly double that of France ($80k vs $43k) but according to happiness index levels[2], France is at 97% the happiness of the USA.

A "happiness index" doesn't measure quality of life, and can be affected by far more than labor laws and per capita GDP.

There are of course outliers, but there is a strong correlation between per capita GDP and standard of living metrics like life expectancy:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Scatterplot-of-life-expe...

[paulez]

Then again on the same example, compare life expectancy in France and the USA, which is 4 years longer in France. Spain is doing even better with a lower GDP. There is correlation, but there are many other factors at play.

[ETH_start]

Yep, there are outliers, and the US is certainly one of them.