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The reason this didn't happen is two fold. First, workers gain skill by the hour. It's more efficient to have forty hour work weeks for a workforce of half the
by 3pt14159 6y ago
The reason this didn't happen is two fold.
First, workers gain skill by the hour. It's more efficient to have forty hour work weeks for a workforce of half the size than twenty hour work weeks with the same size.
Second, many things in the economy are arms races. Housing[0], cost of education, status goods, actual arms for our militaries, etc. We have enough productivity for things like food to be very, very cheap but it just drives up prices elsewhere.
[0] Specifically land value, but also housing in the physical sense since raw materials and labour are not unlimited.
- pessimizer 6y agoZeroth, the more unemployed, the more downward salary pressure on the employed. edit: the reasonable expectation is that half of the workers are fired and the remaining workers' salaries are cut. The Luddites were a result of noticing technological improvements lowered wages and employment at the same time.