It started to some degree centuries before, but it was a slow road to see people fully embrace the new world. However, by the 1970s, nearly everyone was working for wages. The rate of self-employment has remained effectively stagnant since then. This period marks, for all intents and purposes, the limit of human labor productivity.

Productivity has continued to rise since, but on the back of automation, not as a result of humans becoming even more productive laborers.