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by gsf_emergency 428 days ago
These are horrendously difficult questions, though a partial answer to 2) is that labor (with "Baumol" training costs factored in) was so cheap up till the early 60s that high schoolers were easily competitive with college grads..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect#Education

Easier question to answer:

  Why is it so hard to scale payouts to craftspeople (designers, writers, musicians, YouTubers, actors even.)
Even easier question to answer:

  Why is the exchange rate of social status to USD so inelastic
1 comments
ferguess_k 428 days ago
Ah, thanks for the link. I do hope that labor gets more share in the revenue. I kinda love the idea of "cooperative corporations" where shares are more or less evenly shared by the employees (there are ofc differences between different levels, and I'd imagine a large amount of stocks are "frozen"). I think it's going to be a lot harmonic for all employees (even the managers).
link
gsf_emergency 428 days ago
Note the original paper by Baumol and Bowen:

"On the Performing Arts: The Anatomy of Their Economic Problems" (1965)

https://sci-hub.ru/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1816292

>It is largely for this reason that performing arts organizations in financial difficulty have often managed to shift part of their financial burden back to the performers--and to the managements, who also are generally very poorly paid by commercial standards.

Imho the paper continues to function after you patch it with your favorite calling, design-driven industry or organizational structure :)

link