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points by atmavatar 3 days ago | 0 comments
> What kind of illusion must one be under to believe that employers would ever pay you the same amount of money to do less work?

Because supposedly, the new tooling (in this case, AI) allows them to produce the same or greater output despite doing less work. Workers are under the perennial illusion that they'll ever benefit from productivity gains, but that hasn't been the case since the 1970s.

[–] Isamu 3 days ago
> Workers are under the perennial illusion that they'll ever benefit from productivity gains, but that hasn't been the case since the 1970s.

Agreed, except that workers have never benefited from productivity gains, those always accrue to the employer.

The wage growth before the 1970s was mostly from the postwar boom, before jobs started to be moved out of the country. After that there was downward pressure on wages.

[–] jlarocco 3 days ago
1970s? More like the 1800s with the industrial revolution. Workers have almost never seen increased pay from more efficient production - it's the business owners and investors who benefit every time.

People can argue that the workers benefit from buying cheaper stuff, but that's on the other side of the equation.

[–] freehorse 3 days ago
Was it the case before the 70s?
[–] 1-more 3 days ago
In The Conquest of Bread Kropotkin talks about the massive productivity gains of Europe in the age of steam and steel, and uses numbers to show how there's enough beef and mutton and bread and chicken to go around and enough trains to get it to everyone who needs it, such that we can look forward to a future where a worker gets much more for much less work. And we have hit that in some respects: a chicken is nearly free now compared to its historic prices, and the 40 hour work week was not widely established when that book came out. So we work less and get more now, but we don't work a few hours a week in exchange for a life free of any economic insecurity, as has always been on the horizon for technology optimists.
[–] freehorse 2 days ago
The question is not whether working hours have decreased in history, but whether this has been a direct result of productivity increases as opposed to due to other factors, not just due to increases to productivity. I don't think most commenters here address that at all.
[–] toobulkeh 3 days ago
Yes, with the formation of unions. The owners realized that they needed to placate the workers because damages were worse for business. So workers won a 5 day work week, 40 hours, and many more benefits.
[–] freehorse 2 days ago
I agree, but that is due to social struggle not just because more efficient means of production got invented, which is also what I think is the point and the reason I asked the question.
[–] galbar 3 days ago
Not an economist but I've heard the argument that the 5 day 40 hour work week was only possible by the increased productivity that came from the industrial revolution.

My understanding of the argument is that it doesn't deny that unions and strikes weren't instrumental but that it was only economically sustainable because of the increased productivity.

[–] coldtea 3 days ago
Since most of us weren't still working 19th century style 14 hour shifts in factories, or toiling with mostly manual labor at the farm, but had like 9 to 5s / 8 hour work weeks it was.
[–] mhluongo 2 days ago
I believe Ford pushed for the 40 hour workweek in the 20s, so... yes, at least once :)
[–] DanielHB 3 days ago
It was actually, but that was an aberration of the post-war period.
[–] coldtea 3 days ago
Why an "aberration" and not a good and normal thing to happen, we should continue to strive for?
[–] rewgs 2 days ago
A situation where there’s one seller (USA) in a world of buyers (Europe, Japan) is by definition an abberation.

It may have been good (for the US), but that definitely doesn’t make it normal, and unfortunately I don’t see how such a situation occurs again without similar circumstances. I’d love to be wrong, though.

[–] coldtea 2 days ago
While the US had a unique post-war economic advantage, this is not the cause of this.

The same things were enjoyed by workers in most of Western Europe and even Japan post-war.

[–] DanielHB 2 days ago
It is because labor was scarce compared to demand after the war, same thing happened after the black plague in Europe.

The current population decline crisis will likely shift the pendulum towards labor in 50 years or so.

[–] jerkstate 3 days ago
yes, between about 1948 to about 1973, real hourly wages rose approximately in lockstep with worker productivity.
[–] jlarocco 3 days ago
That had to do more with competition for workers than it did business owners wanting to share productivity gains with them.

Nowadays there are plenty of people, so wages haven't risen to keep up.