Technology Change Not the Culprit in Wages Falling Behind US Productivity Gains
Where does this idea come from that if a worker is granted a novel piece of technology which makes him&#x2F;her more productive, he&#x2F;she is entitled to a raise, without necessarily demonstrating any personal improvement or additional contribution to the company?<p>This attitude reeks of entitlement, to me.<p>Edit: to clarify, I believe that articles like these, which do not differentiate between what I would call intrinsic and extrinsic productivity. If a worker picks up a new language and automates away a portion of his job, his intrinsic productivity has increased, making him more valuable on the market.<p>If I retool a station on an automotive assembly line and extrinsically increase the productivity of a worker, it doesn&#x27;t make sense to presume that he is deserving in a share of that increased profit, because his value has not changed.<p>I think there is a certain hesitation in polite [non business] society regarding this kind of measurement of human value, and so we find ourselves with what is only a puzzle in appearance. The bottom line is that a worker&#x27;s compensation on average is determined by how useful he is with a certain set of tools, not how useful his tools are.