Productivity has risen, but it isn't a tide tide that raises all boats. Look at what has boomed since the 70s, finance and tech. Finance because markets were liberalized and the economy financialized. They are at the junction where capital gets allocated in the economy, so they are able to take rents on all the capital that flows through them. The more money moving around the more they slurp up. Tech is where the lions share of productivity was created. All of the huge tech companies are able to leverage the internet to reach a market way larger than any physical store could before. A software development team is automating the workflow that would have gone to physical store employees running a Sears or whatever, a company manufactures a machine that does the work of 5 people 10 times faster, etc. That is why they get paid so much.
Meanwhile the rest of the economy de-industrialized, manufacturing jobs became more scarce because technology increased productivity, whatever was too labor cost intensive went overseas, and whatever jobs couldn't be offshored, retail and service jobs, aren't capable of having the same productivity gains as what was happening in tech. There are pretty hard limits to what restaurant staff, or retail employees, or other regular jobs can do to become more productive. That is why their wages are stagnant, the only reason those jobs exist is because they can't be exported, in some places they even import foreign workers to do those jobs to keep wages low. This is why unions fell out of favor, labor has no leverage anymore since their jobs can just be exported, or they cant but they are low skill jobs so employers can just churn people or grab import immigrants to do it because employees are nothing more than cogs in a machine that Amazon hasn't figured out how to automate yet.
Keep in mind that this is all by design, capital was liberalized, economies globalized, college loans guaranteed, nimbys limiting development in real estate and energy, these were all policies that people wanted and politicians enacted, whether or not they were fully aware of the second order consequences which are why things feel so messed up now.
What people wanted to send almost all labor intensive jobs like manufacturing overseas? Or sending almost all the production of semiconductors which are the primary building blocks of technology overseas? The corporate ownership? Yes. The vast population of citizens? No.
Do you realize that the United States mainly exports cardboard and oil plus a few car parts for BMW? While we import almost everything else.
Finance and tech remained because they are top-heavy industries that require only a few high paid people to execute the majority of those businesses. Bottom line is that this is not sustainable over the long haul. People will revolt as they fully realize that a basic task like buying their own property for their family is unachievable and other basic expenses like healthcare, rent, transportation, and food take up all or more of their income.
It largely doesn't matter what the vast population of citizens wants, the various interest groups lobbied for their own things that all contributed what is going on. Regular citizens wanted policies that had consequential effects too, like housing, student loans and stimulus for example.
Finance was not a glamorous, high paid profession like Wall Street depicted before liberalization, it has only become what it is now after that, that is the change I am talking about. Most of the things that blew up either massively increased productivity or was adjacent to the financialization of the economy and benefited from the uneven expansion of the money supply via the Cantillion effect.
Finance has been a glorious, high paid profession for much longer than tech. Tech only became glorious in the mid-late 1990’s and has proven to be a continuation of the corporate raider mentality of eviscerating companies into top-heavy laden enterprises. Basically, “productivity” increases is the manifestation or facade if you will of these ideals.
You may think that it doesn’t matter what the vast population wanted, but the slack in the system has been narrowed so far now that even the last bastion of the Fed cannot bail out the top-heavy institutions much longer.
I'm not sure what you are arguing, I'm just saying both Tech and Finance are winners in the current globalized economy.
I am just talking about how policy happens, and finance and big tech will come out of this fine or at least better than the general public, they are hoarding cash right now and retail is left bagholding all the way down like always and will be affected more by inflation and other knock on effects.
Meanwhile the rest of the economy de-industrialized, manufacturing jobs became more scarce because technology increased productivity, whatever was too labor cost intensive went overseas, and whatever jobs couldn't be offshored, retail and service jobs, aren't capable of having the same productivity gains as what was happening in tech. There are pretty hard limits to what restaurant staff, or retail employees, or other regular jobs can do to become more productive. That is why their wages are stagnant, the only reason those jobs exist is because they can't be exported, in some places they even import foreign workers to do those jobs to keep wages low. This is why unions fell out of favor, labor has no leverage anymore since their jobs can just be exported, or they cant but they are low skill jobs so employers can just churn people or grab import immigrants to do it because employees are nothing more than cogs in a machine that Amazon hasn't figured out how to automate yet.
Keep in mind that this is all by design, capital was liberalized, economies globalized, college loans guaranteed, nimbys limiting development in real estate and energy, these were all policies that people wanted and politicians enacted, whether or not they were fully aware of the second order consequences which are why things feel so messed up now.