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Based on productivity per worker or per hour worked, the most productive people in the world are whites. Oriental countries barely keep up while working twice the hours after a punishing grind that makes no one want to have kids because it sucks so much.
Productivity isn't just about how much effort the person puts in for what objectively comes out, it's a lot to do with the situation of society outside as well. A lazy barista is the west making a mediocre cup of coffee in 5 mins which sells for £4 will register as more productive than a highly skilled and experienced coffee guru barista in Istanbul selling premium coffee which he also makes in 5 mins for 50 TRY (around £0.8). The fact that objectively the second cup of coffee tastes better and is a better overall experience for the drinker for the same amount of effort by the barista doesn't change the fact that on productivity stats the first cup of coffee will show as 5x the level of productivity.
The first cup of coffee is selling for more for the same amount of effort (and thus shows as being more productive in the stats) not because of how hard people work, but also because of the surrounding circumstances.
Vis a vis: A lazy guy with a digger will be far more productive digging holes than an efficient guy with a shovel in terms of dirt moved per hour. Productivity is usually more about levels of historical capital investment and the environment surrounding a person rather than anything else. The fact that the first person is more productive than the second is an accident of birth where the first guy got to be born in a rich western country and the second guy in a poor developing countery even though if the situation were swapped total holes dug per hour overall would go up massively. My proposal is simple: bring the second guy over to the high historical capital investment zone and watch humanity flourish.
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