Big industry and the pursuit of efficiency - inherently bad
- Thread starter innonimatu
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Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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I have heard that John Maynard Keynes said something along the line that in 21th century, people would only work for 15 hours per week but that did not exactly happen.
civvver
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You need to separate efficiency from profits and separate both from production. Efficiency means producing something at a lower cost, whether it's materials or labor or price or whatever, it doesn't necessarily mean we now must produce more. And both obviously are correlated to profits but the market price for something hugely affects profits as well.
Also what about immensely rich companies and ceos like amazon and facebook? Are they efficient? They don't actually produce anything, they provide services. Sure amazon can get more efficient at delivering packages, but facebook? What they provide is like barely even tangible.
Efficiency is good and increased production is good. Overall we should have enough food now to feed the entire world, plenty of clothing, etc. But how you distribute it and where the gains from that increased production goes is the issue. Most of the time efficiency increases don't go back into the workers pockets but go to the ceos and shareholders. Labor wages are more a product of supply and demand for labor just like any other market.
Also what about immensely rich companies and ceos like amazon and facebook? Are they efficient? They don't actually produce anything, they provide services. Sure amazon can get more efficient at delivering packages, but facebook? What they provide is like barely even tangible.
Efficiency is good and increased production is good. Overall we should have enough food now to feed the entire world, plenty of clothing, etc. But how you distribute it and where the gains from that increased production goes is the issue. Most of the time efficiency increases don't go back into the workers pockets but go to the ceos and shareholders. Labor wages are more a product of supply and demand for labor just like any other market.
