Comment by rsalus
2 hours ago
the argument is productivity gains are increasingly driven by technological advances, which are spurred by capital investment. for example, if a company purchases software that increases their accountants productivity by 5x, should those accountants immediately be paid 4-5x more?
I would contend that the accountant should not - it should flow to who bore the cost of the input (capital owners). however, if you starve labor of those gains, it destroys the consumer base that capital relies on to buy its goods and services. therefore, society requires broad wealth distribution to function, which implies some level of redistribution by the state is needed.
> it destroys the consumer base that capital relies on to buy its goods and services. therefore, society requires broad wealth distribution to function
This is becoming less and less true, because now consumption is becoming dominated by asset owners, to the point that a good jobs report is bad news because it means the fed are less likely to drop rates and through that inflate asset prices.
> now consumption is becoming dominated by asset owners
absolutely true. I am not convinced that consumption can be wholly fueled by asset owners though.