And tools includes IT.

I note in a recent world survey (citation needed) that 41% of English workers thought their immediate bosses to be totally incompetent. The figure was less in France - maybe 19% as I recall).

You can't be me, I'm taken

At what point will the serious people accept that workers in any country are pulling their weight?

It may be true that undercapitalisation leads to poor productivity, but it's also true that as long as workers elsewhere are being "more productive", comparisons can be used as a stick with which to beat those lower down the hierarchy.

I'm beginning to suspect the only way to stop this nonsense isn't direct action or protest - that's not working so well in Greece - but a persistent and lasting mass international blogger campaign of calling the serious people on their bullshit in every single online and offline forum that's available.

I am increasingly convinced that the low "productivity" (defined as euros of output per euro of wages or hour of work) is the result of chronic underinvestment in physical plant.

Low wages are an inefficient subsidy to management because they discourage investment needed to make best use of employee's working hours. Think of a fast food restaurant.  If wages are high, things become automated.  For example instead of having a fryer manned by a low wage worker, you have machines that only need to be loaded and unloaded. Same thing with filling drinks. But these things cost money. Labor saving devices only make business sense if their purchase and upkeep costs less than paying someone to do it manually.  

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

Allianz CEO warns against Greece default - paper

BERLIN, May 23 (Reuters) - The chief executive of Europe's largest insurer, Allianz, warned governments not to push Athens toward insolvency by blocking further aid to Greece.

...'Greece cannot save itself alone through a debt restructuring. The country must not decouple itself from capital markets,' Diekmann said. 'We need an industrialisation plan for Greece, a type of Marshall Plan. European labour and production need to be shifted to the country.'

A translation of the more detailed original, without linking to the Axel Springer source:

(The same guy is advocating retirement at 69 in Germany, so he didn't suddenly became a leftie.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The measure of productivity I'm using is not related to distribution.

It's simply GDP (PPP) divided by the number of hours worked in the country. Wages are presumably somewhat substantially lower than this figure.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg