[BurningFrog]

This discussion seems entirely uninformed by history.

We have continuously been able to do more in less time because of new technology for 250 years, since the Industrial Revolution since.

The increased productivity has benefited workers either by higher wages or shorter hours. Mostly the former.

I'm sure this trend will continue.

[exe34]

> I'm sure this trend will continue.

Is it still the 90s? I thought after that wages stagnated compared to productivity.

[amanaplanacanal]

The great majority of the returns to those productivity increases have gone to capital, not to labor. Inequality just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Eventually they are going to kill the goose that has been laying all these golden eggs.

[keybored]

Increased productivity has not benefited workers since the neoliberal turn in the late 70’s, at least in the US. Productivity has gone up while wages have stagnated.

[munksbeer]

Most people in the world today are way better off than they were in the 70s.

[keybored]

That wages have stagnated is not a lie.

People might be better off according to some metric despite the fact that wages have stagnated. Could you not move the goalpost?

[munksbeer]

This is the part I responded to:

> Increased productivity has not benefited workers since the neoliberal turn in the late 70’s

Your metric is that "wages have stagnated", but that is a meaningless statement without context. Have they risen faster than inflation? Yes. Do people have more purchasing power today than the 70s? Yes. Is your definition extremely narrow to include your cherry-picked countries? Yes.

Most of the world is much better off today than the 70s.

I know I'm fighting against the populist zeitgeist here, so unlikely to make much traction, but anyway.

[keybored]

> This is the part I responded to:

By moving the goalpost.

> Your metric is that "wages have stagnated", but that is a meaningless statement without context.

It is meaningful and has all the context you need if you fill in the minimal blanks.

- Wages stagnating means they were trending better before

- Trending like they did before meant that wages would be better by now

> Have they risen faster than inflation? Yes. Do people have more purchasing power today than the 70s? Yes.

Argue that stagnated is misleading if you want. For all I know that means that they have only marginally gone up or done, not literally stayed the exact same.

Maybe you think marginally better wages is enough. Fine for you.

The point I’m making is quite pointed and can’t be so easily dismissed with the empty rah-rah-progress slogans.

- Productivity has gone up under Neoliberalism

- Wages have stagnated

- Which means that Neoliberalism has not benefitted normal people

- Which means that relatively speaking people are worse off compared to if the wage trend of yester-decade continued

- ... even if one thinks that people are in absolute terms better off now

Which means that neoliberalism has been bad for regular people.

> Is your definition extremely narrow to include your cherry-picked countries? Yes.

Cherry-picked countries? Bro this board is the US. Not in terms of people but the country of origin and the majority of the focus on topics.

But the lopsided distribution is the case for the whole world of course. Percentage-wise:

- The bottom is a little better off

- The middle is a little better off than the bottom

- The top is massively better off

> Most of the world is much better off today than the 70s.

This could be argued for or against subjectively for hours. People have smarthpones. Housing is expensive. As is typical the elitist[1] side goes for the subjective angle.

What I referred to is objective. But more narrow.

> I know I'm fighting against the populist zeitgeist here, so unlikely to make much traction, but anyway.

It’s you and the ghost of Marie Antoinette against the world huh.

[1]: In general: elitist or uninformed.

[munksbeer]

>It’s you and the ghost of Marie Antoinette against the world huh.

That is silly. The populist zeitgeist is very much anti "the thing they call neoliberalism".

But the argument is ridiculously shallow. It cherry picks a few decades in human history, in a few western countries, where we observed very high increases of standard of living. It then sets that as the standard by which we should compare to.

It does not lower itself to examine, what caused that period in all of human history? How did it compare to 50 years prior to that period? Does it make sense to set that period as the benchmark? In other words, was it an anomaly, what caused the anomaly, was it sustainable?

None of this is addressed in any social media post (reddit, hn, wherever). It is far easier to just repeat the manta.