Paul CantrellMay 22, 2024
Less about tools that boost productivity, more about tools that reduce total workload.
Show threadVolineMay 22, 2024

@inthehands
In economics an efficiency improvement results in either: The same output with less inputs (labor, raw materials, etc) or more output with the same inputs. Capitalism will always prefer the gains in more output.

That's a social not a technical problem. No labor-saving device has ever reduced the work day by a single hour. Only worker action.

Show threadPaul Cantrell
@Voline
Agreeing with that, I’ll add that businesses are frequently terrible at serving even their •own capitalist self-interest•. It’s not even as rosy as the picture you paint: businesses will always prefer the thing that •looks• like output gains (local, as measured, as socially constructed, just cause some guy thinks so) even if it destroys actual output. Orgs just can’t seem to stop punching themselves in their face.
May 22, 2024 at 8:39pmWeb
Show threadVolineMay 22, 2024

@inthehands
Interesting, isn't it? So many examples of capitalist firms doing things that harms their ability to make profit, what we think of as their reason for being.

General Motors has factories in Michigan and Ontario. So they can see how it is cheaper for them to employ a worker in Ontario than Michigan, largely due to having to pay for private health insurance for the American, but not for the Canadian. Yet, the automaker never advocates for single-payer health care in the US. They could save billions.

Is there something else more important than profit at stake?

Show threadPaul CantrellMay 23, 2024
@Voline
I honestly think Occam’s Razor wins this question: complex systems are hard, and people are messy and incompetent.