> 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