productivity miracle or workhouse?

[Seth Ackerman]

Doug wrote:

> The bourgeois line is that higher productivity will lead to higher 
> living standards. If there were a productivity miracle underway, we 
> should be enjoying a great wage boom (and a loosening of fiscal 
> stringency). We're seeing higher real wages, but no boom, and 
> continued fiscal strigency. Corporate profitability (in the national 
> income accounts) peaked in 1996 or 1997, so there's no evidence of a 
> productivity miracle there either. The major effect of the 
> "productivity boom" so far has been in the ideological realm, where 
> U.S.-style k'ism is enjoying great prestige.
> 
	What do you make of Robert J. Gordon's analysis of the productivity
stats? He finds that all of the recent increase in prod. growth comes from
the computer manufacturing sector--which makes up only 1% of the economy.
The other 99% of the economy has had SLOWER productivity growth in 1996-99
than in any other period since WWII.

	Seth