If halved working hours result in reduced output of the needed chemicals and machinery, that would definitely mean that less food will be produced. If Australia can keep up paying more than the rest and purchase the needed resources and machinery, then other parts of the world will starve and Australia will be just fine, I guess.
Ideally, paying more should be able to convince people to work and prevent supply chain shortages but if for some strange reason people all over the world insist on working less some people who are less fortunate will definitely need to change their diet or even die.
- the world is at literal subsistence level overall
- all nominal gains in productivity are just shuffling numbers around
- if anyone at all stops working, people will die
This seems obviously untrue given the increase in agricultural productivity. I know a few farmers, and none of them think agricultural productivity has stayed the same. Additionally, it seems really obvious that lots of industrial production is now going towards making luxury cars, TVs, smartphones, bigger houses, better healthcare, etc. and that not all of these are necessary for agricultural production.
Even further, global food insecurity has been decreasing. Only 8.9% of the world's population are food insecure, and prior to the war in Ukraine, those people mostly didn't live in agriculturally productive areas. I find it hard to believe that the remaining 91% are living off the work of the 8.9%. I think a much simpler explanation is that agriculture has actually gotten more productive even if you include the cost of making tractors.
> Ideally, paying more should be able to convince people to work and prevent supply chain shortages but if for some strange reason people all over the world insist on working less some people who are less fortunate will definitely need to change their diet or even die.
And you'd have to assume nobody would change jobs. It's a useless extrapolation.
Ideally, paying more should be able to convince people to work and prevent supply chain shortages but if for some strange reason people all over the world insist on working less some people who are less fortunate will definitely need to change their diet or even die.