Saturday, 19 January 2013

Is it Fair?

For several decades after World War II, the graphs for productivity and wages mirrored eac other - productivity increases allowed workers to earn more money. Over the last decade this has changed. Whoever is reaping the benefits of increased productivity, it certainly isn't the workers.

Part of the explanation is that technological change distorts the relationship- technology when applied successfully lowers costs and increases productivity. You might think it is s fair that workers should not benefit if labour productivity has not brought about the change ...but if we can't design a society that shares the benefits, we build up unrest for the future.

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