Industrialization has always been about increasing productivity per man hour. Less labor, more output. But that's tricky if you have trucks delivering packages to individual houses. And we're not quite to the point where we can have automated delivery trucks, but clearly that's the dream for Amazon. So how do we work less hours while still delivering the same number of packages? Bezos hasn't solved the problem yet.
Now a 20% reduction in time worked will break the camel's back?
While I am fine with it, it will cut into profits. Because productivity is unlikely to increase in a scenario where we preemptively reduce labor. It's optimistic that think that productivity will even remain at current levels if we reduce the time worked, at lease in some sectors.
Oh how did we ever work back in 1975 when we worked more and produced less?
Technology and more importantly, infrastructure investment in the 50's and 60's.
How did our economy even function at this level of abysmal productivity?
Not a lot of competition. Globalization hadn't quite taken hold yet. And when we were competing in international markets, we were competing with industrialized nations with a similar standard of living. And everyone was stacking lots of tariffs on top, for political and economic reasons. Not a lot of countries were into free trade agreements back then. Europe was still working out the details of the European Economic Community, and the Euro as a currency was only a dream and currency exchange was a big deal in everyday life.
How did our companies not go bankrupt left and right when we produced half to a magnitude less?
We had a quite a few bankruptcies in the 80's. But I think it was external factor's like Texaco's funding of a Colombian assassination squad, rather than strictly a productivity problem. I don't think cutting productivity immediately leads to bankruptcy.