According to Fist's brilliant economic logic the US should have 10.5 per cent unemployment, not Germany, and be suffering a fall in national income. Let us return to his statist notion that the German state redirected the benefits of investment to the workers. Now economics explains in considerable detail the means by which the market process moves to see that workers get the full value of their product. Market economics also shows that if labour costs raise the price of labour above its market clearing value persistent widespread unemployment emerges, as in Germany. It follows that real incomes have been raised by using wage-fixing arrangements to restrict the labour supply.
Money is secondary.
Austrians, on the other hand, tend to see economics as the study of one particular aspect of human action. This is an incredibly stupid statement to make, even by Fist's standards. Productivity increases ultimately derive from capital accumulation. This accumulation is produced by the saving and investing decisions of a multitude of individuals. They are not collective in origin, as Fist clearly implies, nor are they a legacy.