Why can't progress in technology replace population growth through higher productivity?
We tend to cut costs and reward the capital managers... but why not maintain costs while rewarding employees?
We tend to cut costs and reward the capital managers... but why not maintain costs while rewarding employees?
Because there is competition. If not you, then someone else will cut costs, and then you can either start cutting costs too, or get outcompeted. Either way, costs get reduced anyway.
Now it sometimes happens that a bunch of competing companies can coordinate and agree to not cut costs. Those cases are usually of interest to the regulators, because the benefits almost universally line the pockets of top company executives, and trickle down to neither employees, nor customers.
The arguments hold where power is highly centralized, however democracies tend to see the world very differently.
I haven’t seen any journalists confuse the two, but of course people offering an opinion are free to confuse them.
To revisit the comment above:
> Why can't progress in technology replace population growth through higher productivity? We tend to cut costs and reward the capital managers... but why not maintain costs while rewarding employees?
This _can_ happen, but I don't believe it _will_ without some authoritarianism. Otherwise, the wealthy will find legal means to reward themselves disproportionately more than their workers. Individuals in America have widely varying interpretations of what it means to take a fair cut. The law is very slow to respond to companies like Walmart or Amazon paying shamefully low warehouse wages. Even usury is borderline legal: I believe most states have some kind of payday loan company.
To be perfectly clear on my views, I think the goals of universal healthcare and universal basic income are good. I don't believe the American socio-cutural system is capable of achieving these in my lifetime. I hope for the sake of my friends and family that I'm wrong, but I'm planning my life around finding a country on a track I believe in.
* I would have preferred a less loaded term than this. The American welfare system is far from effective in it's goals IMO.