Do you still remember the story about the New Machine Age? Figure 1 (below) can help you stop dreaming: Growth rates of labour productivity (i.e. value added per working hour) in the US, Japan and Europe have never since 1945 been as low as during the past ten years! Remember that value added is identical to National Income that can be distributed between labour, capital and government. The productivity crisis will hence put pressure on wages and/or on profits and/or on government revenues, which is not a good message against the background of demographic change.
Image: https://www.socialeurope.eu/
