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explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

You’re describing the doorman fallacy and it’s part of why cooperatives outlast traditional businesses. That elevator operator understood the whole company and was willing to gradually shift to new responsibilities.

In the past generation we’ve seen productivity skyrocket while compensation hasn’t.
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So there’s little to no incentive to increase productivity. You’ll get paid more by switching jobs every few years than you will by putting in hard work for the company. We’re “alienated” from the results of our labor - someone else gets the gains while our slice keeps getting thinner. The whole point of socialism is to address that.

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DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
You are mixing cause and effect. Productivity is rarely affected by bottom level employees to a significant extent these days. That is why there is no pressure for wages to keep up.

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- explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  
  everyone below the owner is incentivised to help the owner increase productivity since the owner ultimately decides if they are fired or get raises and bonuses
  
  I’m addressing this claim here. If increased productivity doesn’t increase compensation, then there’s no incentive to help the owner increase productivity. This year in particular we saw a lot of layoffs by profitable businesses! The productivity increases we have seen can be more easily attributed to technological advancement than increasingly motivated employees.
  
  Imagine how much more productive we’d be if everyone actually had any reason to give a shit about their company. Because most of us certainly do not.
  
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  - DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    
    Imagine how much more productive we’d be if everyone actually had any reason to give a shit about their company.
    
    First of all, this is very questionable, since data from companies that overpaid/indulged their employees like Google and other tech companies in the past did not really see much increase in productivity as far as I can tell.
    
    Second of all, pressure on wages is different. Hence my referral to minimal wages etc. In a sense, a boss is indeed not incentivised to increase productivity if all the gains go to employees anyway, but this is one special edge case. As you say, a majority of productivity gains come from automation improvements and other kinds of innovation, where the incentives do apply.
    
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