Each advance in productivity shrinks the number of truly produc-
tive workers, enlarges the number of workers who are availa-
ble to be utilized in the struggles between corporations over
the distribution of the surplus, expands the use of labor in
wasteful employment or no employment at all, and gives to all
society the form of an inverted pyramid resting upon an ever
narrower base of useful labor. Yet no matter how rapidly
productivity may grow, no matter how miraculous

Labor and Monopoly Capital - Degredation of Work book.

If our effort for producing the goods for survival decreased,
and it needs less workers to do same as in the past.
Who takes the surplus value?


service-oriented economies tend to emphasize wealth redistribution through consumerism,
finance, and low-wage labor rather than creating new,
tangible value as traditional production-based economies do. 



I took in a deep breath and on the exhale blasted out
a long series of arithmetical operations involving many other numbers
pulled right out of the hot air in my head.

With the benefit of aggressive rounding and convenient fudge factors, I eventually settled
on the claim that there were 100,000 pubs in Great Britain.
The correct number, Henry said at the time, was 76,000.

Of course, accuracy wasn't the point.
The purpose of the exercise was to see how easily I could talk about a subject
about which I knew almost nothing on the basis of facts that were almost entirely fictional.
It was, I realized in retrospect, an excellent introduction to management consulting.

"Winging it" would be one way to describe the most important skill
required of a management consultant- though other, less polite terms
come to mind too.

We were exploiting the pricing anomaly - the gap between real market value and workers self-esteem.

The Management Myth book.