| > I would question the premise that all or even most of the productivity gains of any past technological improvement have accrued to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth. That would be relevant if I stood for that premise, but I don't and I wasn't putting it forward. I was responding to your earlier claim: > But if you want the laws of supply and demand not to apply to you, that's what you're asking for. I was disagreeing that this was what was being asked in the present moment. What was being asked in the present moment ("can we have a day off") is very similar to what was being demanded in the past. In the past, workers demanded to share in the wealth and productivity that was being created through technological gains. And so, I agree with you, workers in the modern era have benefited massively from past technological gains. But that wasn't an accident. Those gains were earned through the blood and sweat of workers demanding to be included in those gains. And so, to ensure that these present gains continue to be distributed more equally, we need to continue applying the pressure that was applied in the past. But that's not a rejection of the the laws of supply and demand, it's at a social layer before the economics of supply and demand apply. It's at the political and social layer of how much work we expect an individual worker to put forward into society, which is a major factor in determining the amount of supply of work available. It's a political decision—totally separate from a rejection of capitalism—of how many hours a "full week of work" is. It is not a rejection of capitalism to set the "full work week" to 48 hours, or to 40 hours, or to 32 hours. |