M.K. : How can politics encourage this development?
Prof. Dr. von Weizsäcker
You can define the
connection with a ‘ping
pong’ metaphor: If you
raise productivity, you
can get higher wages.
If you raise wages, you
have a stronger incentive to rationalize labor…
So that’s the basis of
our economic world.
The same ping pong
mechanism can be initiated in the energy efficiency section: Political
decisions and develop-
ment has to become
a ‘ping pong’ between
resource productivity
and resource prices.
I often recommended politics to increase
resource prices exactly
by the percentage that
resource
productivity has been raised. So
increase resource prices
and productivity goes
up, raise productivity
and prices go up and so
forth. This will go in a
31
ping pong mechanism,
maybe it will be going
for a hundred years.
Of course it is easier to
establish the ping pong
mechanism
between
wages and labor productivity, because workers take to the street if
they are unfairly paid.
Whereas a kWh has no
union, no lobby and
remains silent in the
corner without fighting
for a higher price.