Why do we need to increase productivity?

• There are many people (service workers) doing jobs that do not require advanced knowledge.
• Paying them a wage commensurate with the value they produce would cause social tensions due to the large discrepancy in income from the better-off knowledge workers.
• On the other hand, inflation occurs when wages are paid greater than the value produced.
• For the elderly who live on a fixed monthly pension, inflation is undesirable because it reduces their purchasing power.
• It is hard to take either option, but what to do?
• One direction is to increase the productivity of service workers.
• For example, in the current situation in Japan, while the working-age population is decreasing due to the falling birthrate and aging population, there is a large emotional backlash against large-scale immigration, so the need to increase productivity through automation will increase.

A vast number of service workers are engaged in jobs that require only relatively low skills and education. In an economy where the productivity of service workers is low, inflation will eventually drive down real incomes for all if wages are paid well above their productivity. And soon that inflation will cause serious social tensions. But if service workers are paid only in proportion to their productivity, the gap between their incomes and the incomes of better-off knowledge workers will have to widen. This divergence will cause equally serious social tensions. - postcapitalist society P.107

Inflation or unemployment: Traditionally, unemployment has been seen as the most dangerous. Inflation is the greatest threat to retirees who rely on pensions. Inflation is the greatest threat to retirees who rely on their pensions, while employees over 50 also fear a reduction in their future purchasing power. Together, these two generations already account for almost half of the adult population. Moreover, unemployment poses little threat to retirees and middle-aged workers. - Conditions for Innovators P.202-204

The rapid increase in the productivity of manual workers has banished the 19th century nightmare of class struggle. And the increase in the productivity of service workers will avert a new class struggle between knowledge workers and service workers. As long as service workers do not have sufficient income and dignity, post-capitalist society threatens to become a class society.

The worker-capitalist structure that Marx feared collapsed with the advent of Taylor's scientific management.

The assembly time for a single car body was reduced from 12.5 hours to just 2 hours and 40 minutes, and annual production exceeded 250,000 units, topping 1 million units by 1920. //In 1914, doubled the daily wage to $5 per day (equivalent to $103 in 2006 value) and reduced the work shift from a 9-hour day to an 8-hour day and 5-day work week

• [Ford Motor Company - Wikipedia https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%95%E3%82%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%A2%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BF%E3%83% BC]
• Initially, "worker productivity < < worker + machine productivity," but as a result of productivity improvement through knowledge, "worker + machine productivity < < (worker + knowledge) + machine productivity." As a result, the relationship between workers and machines with knowledge became interdependent, and a class society did not develop as Marx had predicted. In the same way, productivity improvement through the power of knowledge will be the trump card for the class society and disparity society that may emerge in the future.

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