Assume 100% productivity.
Assume it takes 1 worker to produce the entire GDP of the US.
What is that 1 worker worth?
What is everyone else worth?
"On average", do you know what that means? Obviously income gains are not evenly distributed, but, the more even they are, the higher the average standard is for all. The real question is, what makes the wealth from productivity gains more evenly distributed? I doubt it is entirely what you are calling "disruptive" technologies, it has more to do with gains that are achieved without government interference in countries which have strong personal property protection and the rule of law.
Productivity in and of itself CONCENTRATES wealth at the top.
Maybe, if you have an extraction based economy like they do in the Middle East where the productive assets are narrowly held. We have a knowledge based economy with widely dispersed "assets". I started my own biz with a $150 worth of capital and a degree in photography, not exactly a large investment. Over the last 20 years we've seen great fortunes amassed by comparatively new players who have spread that wealth rather widely. Also, if a country tries to stem the flow of low productivity jobs from leaving the country with sanctions and trade restrictions or subsidizes the various industries which employ low productivity workers or try to keep too many people doing the job with subsidies like they do with farm subsidies they will create the situation where incomes become polarized.
Wealth will become concentrated if productivity rises on average and incomes on average rise, and the low productivity worker doesn't change something (education and training) to become more productive to maintain the rising standard of living. Industries can make changes as well, it doesn't have to be only the worker ( capital equipment or intellectual property) to make that worker more productive, as in my example earlier of the over weight bulldozer driver being more productive than the fit shovel carrying group of twenty.
This is what the US has done for the last 50 years, as jobs were lost more productive jobs took their place. Those who held onto the low productivity jobs were subsidized in cases by the government and their standard of living fell, relatively, until those industries were forced to become more productive or leave the US for lower labor cost countries.
The government in it's effort to alleviate the pain of technological advances disrupts the natural market mechanism which would drive those less productive industries out of biz and ultimately force that worker into a job which was more productive. You can see that is what happens in farming, the farm subsidies do the exact opposite of their intent because they keep too many in farming which drives down the cost of what they grow, requiring further subsidies to keep them from going broke. |
