The Great Shift from Workers to Owners

deburo•about 2 hours ago

> The stock market is breaking records. Corporate profits are booming. And yet plenty of us look at our paychecks and don’t quite feel the boom.

It is a shame that many people are so risk averse in general that they don't invest in the stock market, getting richer along with the rest. Investors aren't a special class of people, so I don't get why society should look down on the fact that the stock market is breaking records while your paychecks doesn't substantially increase. Your investments do!

> To be clear: I’m not saying that workers are poorer than they were 30 years ago. On average, they’re doing better. The size of our economic pie has grown, and so a smaller slice of a bigger pie still adds up to more pie.

> My point, instead, is to focus on the change in how we slice that pie. It matters because the split between workers and owners is one of the most important factors driving who gets what from our economy.

The author should expand on why he thinks it is actively bad that some people are getting more while everyone is better off anyway.

exceptione•40 minutes ago

  > The author should expand on why he thinks it is actively bad that some people are getting more while everyone is better off anyway.

If you ask this from a perspective of fairness, you will have to consider scenario 1: A worker's labor is getting worth more. Great: then the worker could ask you: why shouldn't I claim a greater total percentage from my labor's worth if the owner is better of anyway?

Scenario 2: I have a hunch the owner does not like that, even if the owner gets richer that way. Instead, the owner and the worker could also decide to keep the workers key at 75%, splitting all the new proceeds between them with the same distribution key. This sounds like the most stable option.

Scenario 3, aka reality. The worker's labor is getting worth more, but the proceeds from this increase goes mainly to the owner. Sidestepping the fairness issue, this is a problem on a macro-economic scale. Wealth will accumulate within a few families who invariably are going to thwart the democratic process to gain more influence than one person=one vote. The system will tune to the needs of a few families, it won't optimize for a global maximum. You can look at the healthcare industry in the USA to understand how a local optimum is disastrously lower than the global optimum. Which by the way has effects on the economy itself (workers will choose to stay in a bad job out of fear for medical costs, or they have to live in bad health, etc). Sociology and economy are deeply intertwined.

edot•42 minutes ago

It’s not risk aversion, it’s lack of money and access. Half of Americans can’t afford a $1k surprise bill. How do you expect them to invest? With what money?

paretolaw•about 3 hours ago

Why would company pay worker more?

Also, AI makes workers do more for a less.

exceptione•about 2 hours ago

  > Why would company pay worker more?

When the worker has bargaining power, i.e. when demand for labor exceeds availability (and if companies don't collude). The big problem for workers here is globalization, which the article goes into as well.

  > Also, AI makes workers do more for a less.

The article touches that briefly:

  If AI makes workers more productive and workers share in those gains, we get higher wages, better jobs, shorter workweeks, and a richer society.

  But if AI mostly replace workers with computers — and the gains flow overwhelmingly to the people who own the technology — then the pie gets bigger but most workers won’t gain much (and may even lose).

The million dollar question is of course whether or not AI will devalue labor or whether it will make labor more valuable. Afaik, there is no conclusive evidence for either position.

exceptione•about 3 hours ago

Fairly nuanced ELI5 take from prof. Wolfers.

The Great Shift from Workers to Owners

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