This is the basic issue. Liberal capitalism made a de facto deal in 80s. Lower taxes for business, create more jobs but with less benefits, resulting in lower intake for governments but the losses will be made up through income taxes through higher wages. Except that deal has turned out to be rubbish, businesses continued to find ways to lower taxes (Ireland, BVI, Netherlands, transfer pricing etc). At the same time wages were held down. The gains of course were largely grabbed by the top 1 percent.

I'm a capitalist but I know that this is no longer sustainable. Fundamentally there comes a point were failure to raise wages means your customers can longer afford to buy your stuff. So your biting the hand that feeds you. Then you end up with the customers creating a credit bubble to try and replace what they have lost through low wages, resulting in sub prime crash, US student debt etc etc

The situation was never sustainable from the beginning as the economy has actually been rigged and obfuscated since the collapse of Bretton Woods.

It comes down to a confluence of r vs K effects on politics (and it's knock on effect on higher education and student debt), the Fed being a private bank masquerading as a US Government institution, fiat currency, and fractional reserve banking. This is the actual cause for inflation (which erodes the purchasing power of wages), and the so called "business cycle" of boom and bust (e.g. the credit bubble). Globalisation has also further exacerbated wealth transfer and increased the risk of systemic failure.

But this is not actually liberal capitalism's fault. Crony capitalism and Government intervention is to blame. There is nothing "liberal capitalism" about tax payers selectively underwriting shareholders. Under a "liberal capitalism" doctrine, the market is allowed to reward winners and punish losers.

If anything liberal capitalism is the only way to save the system but it will be an extremely rough transition.

The productivity gains ($) are shared by the firm and the software/hardware which is responsible for the increased productivity, not the employee.

Some of the productivity gains are passed onto people via lower costs for goods.

But yes, there is a problem of distribution of benefits from productivity gains. Increasing levels of automation will further press this painpoint.