The wider question, however, is whether, and how far, the patent effect on individual categories of work spills over into explaining the relative stagnation of real wages, and of labour’s share of income, as a whole? Superficially one might think that, if labour-saving technology was largely responsible, productivity should have grown faster than has been the case in the last two decades. But what if public policy to maintain aggregate demand and full employment has its main practical domestic effect on low productivity service industries, and the ‘gig economy’? A plausible hypothesis.
