So you suggest taking a productivity gain and using it to keep production while working less.
Why not use the productivity gain to keep the same worked time and increase production?
Why not use the productivity gain to keep the same worked time and increase production?
The obsession some HN commenters have with billionaires is silly. If more is produced then the following can happen:
- your company is more likely to stay in business and thus your job is more secure (although if a competitor does this and your company doesn't, perhaps you could move, although you would be going in at a lower grade than your new, automation-trained colleagues)
- your job is higher paid because your are more valuable to the company; it can have more clients and/or more work from existing clients
- your company's investors are safer and pension funds etc invested in you do better
- your company's budget is bigger and they have more to spend on nonessentials to attract and retain staff
- your customers get lower prices and in turn they can offer more attractive pricing to their customers, which benefits end consumers
I know this all sounds very obvious, e.g. it's why tech salaries are so high: automation allows our work to scale absurdly, but occasionally when I read "only billionaires like productivity!!!111eleven" I need to say something.
I want to say something, anyway.
Others would love what you mention. I still think they would be shortsighted, Ive been fired and manipulated by companies, more stability could even reduce that so I admit my bias, but the second order effects of the elites disproportional capital increase is more social and political power to them which I think leads to oppression. Maybe fifteen years later the people who love your perks wont even notice that they have less rights, potentially from corporate lobbying, worse health from work, and maybe they forgot to have fun and be creative as well since theres no time for that.
In terms of oppression: it's possible. I would just put the blame where it's deserved. Corporate lobbying is not bad. The government, who takes money from you to pay for itself, should be lobby-proof. That might be one of the most important things they do. If they can't just take money and spend it well without being corrupted by companies who'd like it to do things, that is a failure of government.
As for being fun and creative: up until not too long ago many lives were short and almost all were hard. Some of us, especially in the West, have been able to break away from that due to various advances. That's great, but it's not something to return to as much as it is to keep improving towards, or settle for the advances we have and enjoy them.
As for your third point, time that doesn’t serve capital doesnt equal laziness and enjoyment of the spoils of previous generations. Rather it could increase the likelihood of a new renaissancelike period, for culture and reason. Tech and economy is alright but it doesn’t stop with a day less in the office, those four days become more creative and productive from the extra rest alone. I work much harder and effectively on my own projects, and detest the bureaucracy in state and capital. More time and freedom means more of what humans are supposed to be, not stagnation. There’s a reason our society is based on debt, it forces people to do what they rather wouldnt have.
Sorry, I don't understand this. Who cares who has most of it? My point is money doesn't oppress. That doesn't change if other people have more or less money than me. If we revert to a pre-money society, it's unlikely we lower any levels of oppression that exist.
> those four days become more creative and productive from the extra rest alone
This doesn't generalise. Does it work for the service industry? Emergency services? Electricians? I get that there are a few luxury white collar jobs (e.g. tech worker) that can probably benefit from this, but I don't think it's normal at all.
> There’s a reason our society is based on debt, it forces people to do what they rather wouldnt have.
No, it's so that people can have things earlier in their lives. I could work for 40 years and eventually buy somewhere cash, or I could borrow some money and pay it back over years. I choose the latter, and that's why there's debt: almost everyone finds that to be their best option.
Now the thing is, a few people own big stakes of companies, companies that employ the rest of the people. The owners want to profit, they want these employees to give as much as possible to increase profit. If the people at the bottom are powerless, they become batteries for the vision of the owner. And they can’t quit their job, because they wouldn’t be able to pay their mortgage that got more expensive with a higher interest rate. And when times are tough and they dont have liquid cash, they take credit with a high interest rate to get by the month. Now they’re in a bad debt cycle, they dont choose over their lives and have to stay in servitude until they can make that debt manageable again. Debt has good applications and bad applications but let’s not pretend that it’s not a tool for control.
Yes, new tech can’t apply everywhere. If an improvement can be made somewhere but not everywhere, it should still be made in the place it can. The elite are pulling in their direction. The rest have to pull just as hard or the world becomes less equal.
Also, if I believe that newfound productivity is so amazing for stock price, I buy stock. What's wrong with this approach?
I suggest that you come and visit Poland and live on the median salary for a year or two.
How about we start building society for the 99.99% of us?
I don’t think owning stock is about disposable income, it’s about saving. I would expect many people have a savings plan, if at least for retirement. So the majority of people directly own stock and there are more who indirectly do through pensions and other instruments that own stock for beneficiary purposes.
[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-own...
Purchasing power is also a thing. Median gross salary in Poland is $18000, and about $14000 net. They earn less than 1200 per month, of which 300-400 is spent on rent excluding utilities, add another 50-100 utilities, 200 for food, then gas and transport and you quickly see that the savings are minuscule.
How can you buy stock on 200 (at best) after all expenses?
This is the same way Americans do it.
Purchasing stock hasn’t been difficult for decades and there are many zero fee index funds that you can put small amounts into each month.
I can’t find percent Polish people who own stock but I will bet you $1000 that it’s greater than 0.01%.
I don't get your obsession with Poland. It's a country I have a soft spot for, even though it's not my country of origin, but most importantly my argument is entirely orthogonal to that.
Let's take Cuba, US said don't trade with Cuba if you want to be okay with us, and the world complied. Similarly for all socialist countries, and every country in which the US intervened directly or otherwise.
Countries are not independent islands, and the American government, and the Russian and Chinese regimes sure know how to stick their fingers in every pie available.
The question is: is it better to be a weaker economy in a world where other countries interact with it, or not? If it is, then said economy has to make do with what it has, and while there are geopolitical factors at play, they aren't all bad (indeed if they were even just "more bad than good" then more countries would be like North Korea). Your case of Cuba is a good one: the embargo means that Cuba is more like an independent island, and less like a weaker economy participating in a global economy.
But to relate geopolitics to "society" is still wrong, I think. A society is a smaller thing than "everyone on earth". Inherited familial, political, and institutional norms are roughly at the society level, and they play a large part in how law-abiding, productive and welcoming that society is. A lot of that is bounded at country, although sometimes countries will share cultural lineages that mean they are similar.
P.s. fantastic news on the Polish economy front. Great to hear salaries are on the rise.
They are, but inflation (and shrinkflation) powered by corporate greed has screwed people over the last year; I could fill my tote back with equivalent of 20 euros in September when the local currency was much weaker, whereas now I need to spend more in local currency than I did back then.
Certainly the war has caused inflation, in the sense of "things costing more".
Or that's a myth, everything is setup for them to succeed, and they've captured value that we should all be sharing in because we don't fully account for externalities or the accumulation of capital. As a human being everyone should have a piece of the pie, and we can remove force from the system if we choose to - and we will one day.
There should be a _lot_ more to life than working for other people.
What’s wrong is that you don’t benefit as much as them, and us workers outnumber them. I prioritise the quality of life of a larger quantity of people rather than the capital increase of a select few sociopaths.
I hope those who object who aren't already some degree of socialist will move a little leftwards now.
It'd be nice to use some increases in efficiency and productivity to actually benefit something other than shareholder profits.
Improve quality of life for "everyone" if you want to achieve a different outcome for your kin.