“Canada has a productivity problem. It’s a problem for us.”
But ask yourself—who’s the “us” in this statement?

Because if you’re working class, this so-called problem isn’t yours. It hasn’t been for decades.

We keep hearing about productivity like it’s some sacred national virtue we’ve let rot. The narrative is always the same: we’re not producing enough. We’re falling behind. We’re lazy. We’re inefficient. And this should worry us. But nobody ever pauses to ask: who, exactly, is this a problem for? Because from where I’m sitting, it isn’t for workers.

The relationship between productivity and real wages has been dead since shoulder pads were in style. They divorced sometime in the late 70s and never got back together. Productivity kept climbing. Wages? Not so much. In fact, real wages have been largely stagnant, even as output per worker soared. So if productivity gains don’t result in higher pay, better working conditions, or fewer hours for workers, what are they for?

Grab your copy of Own The Libs: Politics is the New Personality.

A problem for capital, not labor

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: declining productivity is a capital owner’s problem, not a worker’s one. When Canada’s productivity lags behind its G7 peers, it’s not everyday people who lose sleep over it. It’s investors, CEOs, and corporate boards, because it means they can’t extract as much value, as quickly, as they’d like. It’s not that you aren’t pulling your weight. It’s that they aren’t pulling enough profits.

But the way it’s framed — cleverly, manipulatively — is designed to co-opt you into their anxiety. It’s strategic messaging. A hegemonic maneuver. By discussing the productivity problem as a national issue, it implants the idea that your interests are aligned with Bay Street, that when they lose, you lose. It quietly suggests that the whole country, including labor, should be rallying behind the mission to boost productivity, even though the spoils of that productivity haven’t trickled down in decades. Because when has trickle-down economics ever worked?

What they’re really saying is: “Capitalism isn’t extracting enough value from labor in Canada. This is bad. Let’s fix it.”

But of course, that wouldn’t land as nicely in a press release.

What’s more insidious is how this sentiment becomes gospel. It seeps into policy, into economic commentary, into national identity. Canada, they’ll say, is becoming uncompetitive. Our workers aren’t innovating fast enough. Our infrastructure is falling behind. But again, behind what? Behind whom? The U.S., where worker protections are so weak they can lay you off on a whim and sue you if you complain? Are we actually complaining about lagging in a race to the bottom?

Here’s the part they don’t say out loud: weaker productivity can sometimes reflect stronger worker protections. Canada may be less “productive” compared to the U.S. because we have more humane labor standards. More paid sick days. Less precarious gig work. More expectations for work-life balance. Imagine that — being less productive because you’re more human.

Cultural hegemony is alive and well

But the dominant narrative doesn’t want you to think that way. The framing is strategic. It’s not just about raising alarms, it’s about enforcing norms. It’s about getting labor to internalize the goals of capital. If you can get workers to believe that low productivity is a threat to them, you can justify all sorts of reforms: automation, austerity, deregulation, and of course, the most classic one of all — tightening belts. Yours, not theirs.

This is what hegemony looks like: when the ruling class doesn’t need to impose its worldview by force because the rest of us have already accepted it as common sense. “Canada has a productivity problem” sounds neutral and statistical on its face. But it’s soaked in ideology. It’s a Trojan horse for capital’s priorities, dressed up as a national interest.

And this is the part that should piss you off: it’s working.

Because when you repeat that line — parrot it without scrutiny — you’re participating in your own exploitation. You’re playing into the illusion that your goals are their goals. But the reality is, labor and capital are in a perpetual, oppositional dance. Their objectives are diametrically opposed. One seeks to maximize output per dollar paid. The other wants to maximize compensation per unit of effort. When capital cries productivity, it’s rarely asking how to improve worker well-being. It’s asking how to squeeze more juice from the same lemon.

Capitalist exploitation: A feature, not a bug

Let’s not forget what capitalism is at its core: an exploitative system. And I say that not as a radical, but as someone who understands the math. If you’re selling your labor, and someone else is profiting from it, then by definition, you’re not being paid the full value of what you produce. That’s not a glitch. That’s the business model.

So when you hear about Canada’s productivity problem, resist the instinct to absorb it as your own. Ask yourself who stands to gain if it’s solved. Who benefits from the solution they’re proposing? And most importantly, who gets left behind?

Instead of rallying around the idea of boosting productivity for its own sake, maybe the national conversation should be about narrowing the gap between labor and capital. Maybe the issue isn’t that workers aren’t producing enough, but that capital is taking too much. Maybe we don’t need more productivity, but more equity. Not equity in the social justice sense, but in the financial one: ownership and labor’s ability to retain it.

Until productivity gains once again mean better wages, better conditions, and shorter hours for workers, forgive me if I don’t lose sleep over how many widgets we’re not making.