Leland R. Beaumont is an independent wisdom researcher who is seeking real good. He is currently developing the Applied Wisdom curriculum on Wikiversity.
This article is adapted from the previously published article Who owns the Productivity dividend?
Let’s consider this simple story.
Hans Schumacher is a kind man who has owned the family shoe business for many years. Shoe manufacturing technology continues to improve, and it is time to replace his obsolete Mark II shoe machine with a new Mark V model.
Today, the Mark II Shoe machine manufactures 10,000 shoes each day requiring 10 workers to operate it.
The new Mark V machine is twice as fast. It can manufacture 20,000 shoes each day with 10 operators, or 10,000 shoes each day with only 5 operators.
The new machine is arriving, and Hans faces a difficult choice[1]. He can:
1. Retain his 10 employees, manufacture 20,000 shoes each day and hope to find enough customers, perhaps by reducing prices and increasing marketing, to sell all those shoes. Here the productivity dividend —the benefits resulting from increased productivity—is shared between Hans, who is selling more shoes, and the customers who are getting shoes at a lower price. Hans knows that the number of feet in the world remains relatively constant, so he is concerned that it may be difficult to sell so many more shoes.
2. Layoff 5 employees, retain 5 employees, and manufacture 10,000 shoes each day with only half the number of employees. Here the productivity dividend goes to Hans, and the 5 employees laid off become unemployed. Hans would feel bad for the loyal employees he would layoff but sometimes that’s just business.
3. Some blend of these options, such as 16,000 shoes each day with 8 employees.
4. Retain all 10 employees, but have them work half-time, and continue to manufacture 10,000 shoes each day. He now has choices in how to pay the employees. Based on hours worked, it would be fair to pay them half what they were getting earlier. Based on productivity, he could afford to pay them the same as they were making earlier. He liked that idea.
This inspired him to imagine another option. What if he could find 5 employees who would volunteer to leave in return for receiving ongoing severance payments? With the money saved by this reduced workforce he could create a productivity dividend fund. This fund is the direct result of the increased productivity. The resulting savings could go into the fund, and the employees that volunteered to leave would receive payments from the fund as their share of the productivity dividend.
[1] I recognize this analysis neglects the purchase price of the Mark V machine, material costs, cost of sales, and other costs not related to manufacturing labor. Presenting this simple model as a thought experiment allows us to focus on alternatives for distributing the productivity dividend.
The new Mark V Shoe machine manufactures 10,000 shoes each day requiring only 5 workers to operate it. The savings could go into the productivity dividend fund and be distributed to the displaced workers.
This raised several important questions he needed to consider:
- Would this undermine the work ethic?
- Has anything like this been done before?
- Is this starting down the slippery slope toward socialism, or even communism?
- How would the displaced workers spend their free time?
- Would this be fair?
- Would the business become uncompetitive?
Hans had serious issues to deliberate before making his decision.
This is the first in a three-part series exploring the future of productivity. Re-visit The Fulcrum for the next installment in this series on Friday, August 18, where we dive into the difficult concept of deliberation on the effects of increased productivity.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.