The car wash example is interesting, as something I’ve seen and experienced but never thought about in that way.

I wonder how it truly factors into productivity, though. How is productivity measured, and does that measurement capture what is true?

You mention automated car washes as a baseline. I never used those in the past because I figured they’d be rubbish or would scratch the car or whatever. So I’d occasionally wash the car myself, and that’s it. Now that we have manual car washes available, I use them from time to time. They clearly (I assert) do a better job than anything automated. And they do it inside and out.

So I find the comparison interesting, but in need of elaboration.

So then all the productivity improvements are nothing more than boosting the hashrate of your crypto miner? You have to do it to not fall behind, but once everyone has done it, we all end up back in the same spot where we started?

Not if that country also legislates heavy penalties for companies that produce their goods in countries with worse labor laws.

Hey, if fuel gets expensive enough this will be much less of a problem! Let's all thank Trump and Iran for their great work on bringing the four day work week closer to fruition. This isn't how I would've imagined bringing industry back to the States, but it's a promise made, promise kept.

This has the same energy as "if we tax the billionaires, they'll leave". That statement and yours are wrong. Why? Because if it was profitable, they would've done it already. Pretty much any employer would use you as fertilizer if there was an uptick in the stock price.

But let's say it's true. Great. Punish them with tariffs. They also have diminished political power because they're no longer a local employer.

We are colletively at a breaking point as a society where people legitimately can't afford to exist in a society that will soon mint its first trillionaire. This is beyond even French revolution levels of wealth inequality.

Did you know that public market shareholders almost always vote for stock buybacks

You still need free market economics. If consumers have enough choices then the company with comfortable employees that refuse to invest profits into their operation will lose to the better organized competitor prioritizing a balance between the two.

Trillions of dollars spend on wars which don't need to exist doesn't help.

> A more important point is why is it that Americans objectively are richer yet feel poorer?

I thought about this a lot. Some of it is expectation wrapped up in the American Dream. You work hard, and get those rewards. But that isn’t true because life isn’t fair and capitalism isn’t particularly humane or ethical.

Some of it is perceived. The people who strike gold without hard work expect to keep striking more gold, and when the yield shrinks you’re appalled because that’s not how things should be.

US is a deeply individualistic society, now more so than ever. We don’t always sacrifice for the common good, because they’re supposed to work hard just like me.

Anyway if you read all that, thank you.

Depends what your comparison is. Are you comparing with the EU, China or Ethiopia?

Seems to me, the question is more why all that supposed prosperity doesn't translate to the living quality improvements one would expect.

on the whole, most americans are not being compensated for the amount of value their work produces

But, if there exist poorer countries, why is there a five-day work week instead of a seven-day one? Why aren't we all just working 24/7?

I wonder what would happen to costs if we had a 90%+ tax rate on the ultra wealthy... maybe if all these record profits were instead funneled back into society everyone would be better off AND prices would drop... a system like this would be good for society it seems... we should come up with a good name for that system, tho...

>> Prices will increase a lot.

Citation needed. Very little of what we buy today as a consumer are commodities whose price is determined primarily by the cost of production — and even then labor costs are rarely the most significant cost.

Most things we buy are priced according to what the consumer is willing to pay for it, and the balance sheet of the companies that sell most of the things we buy show there’s a lot of wiggle room there.

This is absurdly ahistorical. Corporations take as much as they can. If there were no law limiting work to 40 hours / week, they would demand far more - as they had before massive workers' protests forced the current limits.

How did the 40-hour workweek come about?

(Certainly not "naturally")

You can ask that question in the opposite way too: Why does the weekend still exist? Why aren't people working 24/7?

Labor has been completely defeated in the US. Capital sets the terms and has captured the political class. You know this but are using deflection to put blame on individuals who don’t actually hold power. Management can offshore anytime workers present a challenge.

I like to feel that I'm spending my time productively, yeah. Not all of my time, mind you. People generally like to feel their work impacting their environment. Many consider it the most fulfilling part of their lives. Working purely for compensation is a great way to kill most positive energy for a solid half of your waking hours most days. People react differently, of course. For some the knowledge that they're making money alone provides the psychological reward, others find enjoyment in the moment-to-moment of things, even if they're not part of a meaningful goal, and yet others offset the meaninglessness of their work with a fulfilling home life or hobbies.

On the whole though, I'd say yes, people do care about productivity so long as they feel it's connected to their world and oriented in the right-ish direction.

As long as they feel growth of productivity results to increase in their standard of living then why not?

a good number do, I've been surprised by how many low level fast food managers actually care about how well the store's performing due to owner pressure despite seeing little to no wage improvement regardless

You should hire people to cover those hours outside of the 9-5 then. Or do you expect your employees to slave away for your benefit without getting anything but the bare minimum from you?