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myrmidon ◴[] No.44442370[source]
I think increased automation and now AI are making wealth inequality problems inherently worse.

The existence (and prevalence) of food delivery work alone is a depressing portent in my view: If delivering food for objectively shitty pay is still a viable option for a lot of people, that signals to me that human labor has become borderline worthless (even in a wealthy/developed environment).

That makes the "american dream" (=> start from nothing, do a good job, become wealthy) increasingly less realistic.

I'm also afraid that this (preventing wealth inequality from getting out-of-control) might be a "practically unsolvable" problem for democracies in general (just like managing housing and public pensions): It is too easy to "sabotage" democratic progress for the negatively affected minority (and that minority is exceedingly powerful/well-positioned, too).

replies(3): >>44442463 #>>44442554 #>>44450203 #
ta1243 ◴[] No.44442554[source]
In the US, over the last 45 years, work has increased in value about 3.5% a year, and the S&P about 9.5% a year.

Work is not valued, wealth is.

replies(2): >>44442713 #>>44442766 #
bluecalm ◴[] No.44442766[source]
Why would you compare a unit of work (say an hour) to a cumulative index? It just doesn't make any sense to compare those two values.
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1. ta1243 ◴[] No.44446266{3}[source]
An hour of work buys far less of a percentage of the value of US companies than it did 20 years ago.

in 1983 a single "share" in the S&P, or a single unit of American business, cost $120, about 13 hours work at the median wage then of about $9/hr.

Today you would have work for about 200 hours at the median wage of $30/hr to buy the same single share ($6200)

Companies have ballooned in value relative to median earnings. And top 10%ile earnings too for that matter.