Hey, fire and the wheel we're too shabby in their day. I think they all lived in caves ...together then too.
Who defines "living wage"? You? A man's compensation should be influenced by supply & demand. Companies do not need to pay someone $20/hour to assemble a battery.
The recent burst of innovation and growth is a product of the exploitation of oil and gas. But before we go (further) off the rails here, it is important to recognize that there really is more than one type of capitalism (and communism for that matter).
Living wage is determined by the cost of living along with what standard of living a government expects it's population to be relatively satisfied with. So if it cost 30K for a god damn chevy, then 20 bucks an hour must be paid to the battery assembler, or they won't be selling many cars. The 300K crowd ain't buying chevy's, let alone the 7&8 figure crowd. Who makes up the larger segment of the population? Those are the people who will determine growth and demand, not the uber wealthy. Fordism, named after Henry Ford, refers to various social theories about production and related socio-economic phenomena. The essential meaning is that the worker must be paid higher wages in order to afford the products that the industrialist himself produces, causing an economy that runs full-circle. Yes, Marx was a fan of this idea as well, but he, like so many others, failed to consider the basic human element called greed, and the tyrannical nature of those at the top of any food chain. Until that is addressed, any and all "isms" will ultimately fail.
Not really, the "exploitation" of oil and gas doesn't correlate with technological growth. The "exploitation" of microchip technologies and computer science does though. Most of that is powered by the "exploitation" of electricity though. Good thing that humans "exploited" other natural resources, like agriculture... I guess we shouldn't use those natural resources either because that's also "exploitation".
And here you have it from the horses mouth... fire, wheel, and caves are fine and dandy by commie standards, so long as we have "equality"...