| 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... |
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...