4 ms·

A lot of labor practices improved because exponential productivity growth made that a practical decision. You can't have an eight-hour day and a two-day weekend

A lot of labor practices improved because exponential productivity growth made that a practical decision. You can't have an eight-hour day and a two-day weekend when it takes hundreds of hours of labor to make a single shirt. Factories became safer when people were rich enough that they could afford to pay for safety equipment to prevent even rare accidents. A lot of dangerous and exhausting jobs are now done by machine - no one picks cotton anymore because the process has been automated. And so on.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> A lot of labor practices improved because exponential productivity growth made that a practical decision. No, they didn't. In some cases productivity gains may have been a necessary prerequisite, but it was never the proximate cause—labor action to wrest better conditions from capital was always the proximate factor.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  First you had to have the productivity gains before you could have the labor movement. Look, there's no easy way to farm with a mule. Most people were subsistence farmers for most of human civilization's history. They grew just enough to get by with not much more. That is back- breaking, life-shortening labor. Technology changed that. Industrialization let modern society soar past the relatively high living standards of ancient Rome, which were lost in the dark ages.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    > First you had to have the productivity gains before you could have the labor movement. That's, just, like, your opinion, man. If the labor movement is considered one way of fighting for human rights, then, it's been around a long time, my friend. Think: serfdom, indentured service, slavery.
    - monkeycantype 6y ago
      It's interesting to argue the opposite, that the power past empires had over people and their labour devalued productivity improvements, that Industrialisation required a social context in which the expense of labour justified the capital investment and risk of mechanisation.
      - adamsea 6y ago
        I'm not sure I understand. And tbh I'm not sure I originally expressed myself well. But I think we all agree that laws against child labor are good, that laws requiring a weekend are good, and that basic safety laws in dangerous environments like meatpacking plants are good. And we'd all agree that those things fall somewhere on the spectrum of "human rights". And, if someone doesn't agree then that's an entirely conversation that needs to be had. But for those of us that do, well, all those things came from organized labor. So --- organized labor, imperfect as it is, like all human institutions, has been and is one of the ways in which people have fought for their rights over time. Period.
        monkeycantype 6y ago
        Sorry for the confusion, clearly from the way I express myself, I am a software developer and not an economist, and I use this forum to experiment with how to communicate and think about topics on which I am not expert, but care about. I was meaning to respond to the idea in the conversation that I read as "the gains in human rights and labor standards, had only been possible because of productivity improvements" I think it's worth considering instead whether investment in 'productivity' has been undermined by poor human rights. Could the roman empire have mechanised, industrialised, but that the cruelty and oppression that was fundamental made it uneconomical, when the capital cost was compared to the cheap labor cost of buying slaves. I have a friend who debates with me about the problems that flow from the high cost of labor and environmental standards, and I argue back that the greater problem is the low cost of labor, the low enforcement of human rights and environmental standards, because these de-incentivise the upfront 'activation energy ' investment in any efforts that would make our civilisation more sustainable and equitable.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > First you had to have the productivity gains before you could have the labor movement So, like I said previously “...productivity gains may have been a necessary prerequisite, but it was never the proximate cause—labor action to wrest better conditions from capital was always the proximate factor.”
sudosysgen 6y ago
Absolutely not. Fair and safe labour practices were possible from the get-go, and were simply ignored for profit. Just like a lot of things today. What pushed this social progress was collective labour action in the form of unions and socialist parties engaging in direct action.
- ghufran_syed 6y ago
  So we would expect to see much more ‘fair and safe Labour practices’ in socialist countries where the profit motive did not exist, such as the Soviet Union, the other countries of the Warsaw Pact, North Korea, Cuba etc. Do we have any evidence that that was the case? Strangely, all those countries appear to have been poorer than their peers (North vs South Korea and East vs West Germany probably being the best to compare to minimize confounders).
  - claudiawerner 6y ago
    >So we would expect to see much more ‘fair and safe Labour practices’ in socialist countries where the profit motive did not exist No, and that's not GP's claim either. It's entirely reasonable (and historically accurate) to say that socialists have consistently pushed for improved labour rights in capitalist countries. That doesn't make any comment as to their achievements (or lack of) in "socialist" countries.
dnissley 6y ago
I don't know why people are so opposed to this explanation. You didn't say all labor practices improved because of productivity gains. And no doubt collective action played some role in the current state of things, but so did a lot of other factors. To claim otherwise without a very good argument smacks of ideological possession. The vehemence with which such an explanation is insisted upon is revealing.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> A lot of labor practices improved because exponential productivity growth made that a practical decision. No, they didn't. In some cases productivity gains may have been a necessary prerequisite, but it was never the proximate cause—labor action to wrest better conditions from capital was always the proximate factor.

chrisco255 6y ago
First you had to have the productivity gains before you could have the labor movement. Look, there's no easy way to farm with a mule. Most people were subsistence farmers for most of human civilization's history. They grew just enough to get by with not much more. That is back- breaking, life-shortening labor. Technology changed that. Industrialization let modern society soar past the relatively high living standards of ancient Rome, which were lost in the dark ages.
- adamsea 6y ago
  > First you had to have the productivity gains before you could have the labor movement. That's, just, like, your opinion, man. If the labor movement is considered one way of fighting for human rights, then, it's been around a long time, my friend. Think: serfdom, indentured service, slavery.
  - monkeycantype 6y ago
    It's interesting to argue the opposite, that the power past empires had over people and their labour devalued productivity improvements, that Industrialisation required a social context in which the expense of labour justified the capital investment and risk of mechanisation.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      I'm not sure I understand. And tbh I'm not sure I originally expressed myself well. But I think we all agree that laws against child labor are good, that laws requiring a weekend are good, and that basic safety laws in dangerous environments like meatpacking plants are good. And we'd all agree that those things fall somewhere on the spectrum of "human rights". And, if someone doesn't agree then that's an entirely conversation that needs to be had. But for those of us that do, well, all those things came from organized labor. So --- organized labor, imperfect as it is, like all human institutions, has been and is one of the ways in which people have fought for their rights over time. Period.
      - monkeycantype 6y ago
        Sorry for the confusion, clearly from the way I express myself, I am a software developer and not an economist, and I use this forum to experiment with how to communicate and think about topics on which I am not expert, but care about. I was meaning to respond to the idea in the conversation that I read as "the gains in human rights and labor standards, had only been possible because of productivity improvements" I think it's worth considering instead whether investment in 'productivity' has been undermined by poor human rights. Could the roman empire have mechanised, industrialised, but that the cruelty and oppression that was fundamental made it uneconomical, when the capital cost was compared to the cheap labor cost of buying slaves. I have a friend who debates with me about the problems that flow from the high cost of labor and environmental standards, and I argue back that the greater problem is the low cost of labor, the low enforcement of human rights and environmental standards, because these de-incentivise the upfront 'activation energy ' investment in any efforts that would make our civilisation more sustainable and equitable.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > First you had to have the productivity gains before you could have the labor movement So, like I said previously “...productivity gains may have been a necessary prerequisite, but it was never the proximate cause—labor action to wrest better conditions from capital was always the proximate factor.”

sudosysgen 6y ago

Absolutely not. Fair and safe labour practices were possible from the get-go, and were simply ignored for profit. Just like a lot of things today. What pushed this social progress was collective labour action in the form of unions and socialist parties engaging in direct action.

ghufran_syed 6y ago
So we would expect to see much more ‘fair and safe Labour practices’ in socialist countries where the profit motive did not exist, such as the Soviet Union, the other countries of the Warsaw Pact, North Korea, Cuba etc. Do we have any evidence that that was the case? Strangely, all those countries appear to have been poorer than their peers (North vs South Korea and East vs West Germany probably being the best to compare to minimize confounders).
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  >So we would expect to see much more ‘fair and safe Labour practices’ in socialist countries where the profit motive did not exist No, and that's not GP's claim either. It's entirely reasonable (and historically accurate) to say that socialists have consistently pushed for improved labour rights in capitalist countries. That doesn't make any comment as to their achievements (or lack of) in "socialist" countries.

dnissley 6y ago

I don't know why people are so opposed to this explanation. You didn't say all labor practices improved because of productivity gains. And no doubt collective action played some role in the current state of things, but so did a lot of other factors. To claim otherwise without a very good argument smacks of ideological possession. The vehemence with which such an explanation is insisted upon is revealing.