> why purchasing power stays the same when efficiency increases since 1971.
i would expect that purchasing power remains consistent for people doing the same work.
It's true that capital gains is captured by those who own the capital - but those who do own such capital had to take capital risk to obtain such gains.
Labour income (aka, wage income) increased if the labour changed to be more efficient without said use of capital - for example, programmers' income is very high. But for someone whose labour output hasn't changed from the 70's, is it expected that their purchasing power somehow increases (compared to someone else's)?