Thursday, May 17, 2012

working harder - producing more

Productivity has skyrocketed over the last 50 years. General Motors were making eight cars per worker in 1955 and it has now become 43 cars per worker in 2011.

This is true of much of the economy. New technologies have radically increased the amount that a single worker can produce in a working week. Manufacturing productivity in the United States has quadrupled since the early seventies, for example.  Throughout the world the story is the same. Fewer people can create more value. Yet this triumph of productivity has perverse consequences. New technology makes more and more people economically unnecessary.

Granted to-day much of the world is still poor and hundreds of millions of people barely survive. But the number of workers needed to feed, clothe, house and transport the global population nevertheless remains a small percentage of the population.

The question then is this: what do we do now that we have almost solved the problem of scarcity? Who should benefit from these vast increases in productive power? At the moment, the managers and owners of capital together capture the lion's share of the wealth created. Technology has had the effect of enriching a handful.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said "The world has changed and our competition has changed and I think the only way we can pull out of this is by us all working harder". We can all work even harder, for sure. But the system of production still won't need most of us. But of course there is always under-employment on low wages as a choice and jobs in the service sector.

The machinery of material production no longer needs more than a handful of us to provide for all. But if that machinery is to be made consistent with human flourishing in its fullest sense, then we, the many, should all have equal access to the fruits of our labours. The few will always serve their own class interests.

In the midst of unemployment and underemployment, we have urgent work to do, the task of working towards democratic common ownership.

Freely adapted from  here

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