I wonder if the reason wages are stagnating is that the "efficiency" is a result of skimming off the top, and removing much of the value added by removing people from the process. Maybe appliances failing as soon as the warranty expires introduces market externalities that someone will dearly pay for some day...
Or maybe we are paying for it today! Have you ever heard of the [broken window fallacy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)? Basically, someone may claim that breaking windows increases spending on window repairs, which is a net benefit to the economy. This, of course, ignores what could have been bought had the window not been broken to begin with.
By damaging the rest of society in ways that they're not directly accounted for, they find new ways to profit. Many have stayed competitive by costing the human race more that they provide in the long term in many cases.
But we won’t. Most societies that become too successful suffer a similar fate. They become too polarized, and destroy the very foundations of what them great.
I do hope the US is different. Most of humanity has lived under authoritarian rule. For a brief period of time it seemed like a democracy could be the most powerful country in the world. But that’s fast unraveling...
