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It's not actually any different; "technical unemployment" has caused many problems that are clearly visible from a cursory examination of the historical record.

It's not actually any different; "technical unemployment" has caused many problems that are clearly visible from a cursory examination of the historical record. The obvious place to start is the horse: the horse population in the US peaked at 26M in 1917 and had declined to 3M by 1960, almost 1/10th of its peak value [0]. When those horses were unemployed by the automobile, we did not retrain them in new lines of work. They just died. It got so bad that conversation societies were established to protect endangered breeds. Eventually we created a handful of new jobs in the recreational sector for them, so the population of horses is rising now, but it is nowhere close to the peak value, and of course we did not create those jobs within the lifetime of any displaced horse. In fact what the historical record shows is that massive technological shocks produce long-term unemployment. It doesn't seem to matter if it's a horse, because of course they're just resources to be exploited in the furtherance of human goals. But then again, so are you. [0] http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/hsp/soaiv_07_ch10.pdf http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/hsp/soaiv_07_ch10.p...

mohamedattahri 10y ago
I'm sorry, but the horses example is really terrible. Technological disruption is not new. It's been around forever. If your theory stands true, then how come that overall, the global economy is growing? Doesn't it mean that we've created more jobs that we've destroyed? What about the other important element no one seems to care about in this conversation: the jobs created - very often - require a higher level of skills and specialization.
- drewcrawford 10y ago
  > If your theory stands true, then how come that overall, the global economy is growing? Doesn't it mean that we've created more jobs that we've destroyed? The number of jobs does not correlate to GDP growth [0]. So whether "the economy is growing" is not terribly related to whether jobs are being created. This is somewhat puzzling under Adam-Smith-Wealth-of-Nations ideas about economics, but it's an empirical fact. > Technological disruption is not new. It's been around forever. You seem to be misunderstanding the argument; I'm not arguing for something new. I'm arguing that negative effects of technological shock are well-attested in the historical record: you can look back at historical data and plainly see them. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/economy/us-growth-and-employment-data-tell-different-stories.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/economy/us-growth...

mohamedattahri 10y ago

I'm sorry, but the horses example is really terrible. Technological disruption is not new. It's been around forever. If your theory stands true, then how come that overall, the global economy is growing? Doesn't it mean that we've created more jobs that we've destroyed? What about the other important element no one seems to care about in this conversation: the jobs created - very often - require a higher level of skills and specialization.

drewcrawford 10y ago
> If your theory stands true, then how come that overall, the global economy is growing? Doesn't it mean that we've created more jobs that we've destroyed? The number of jobs does not correlate to GDP growth [0]. So whether "the economy is growing" is not terribly related to whether jobs are being created. This is somewhat puzzling under Adam-Smith-Wealth-of-Nations ideas about economics, but it's an empirical fact. > Technological disruption is not new. It's been around forever. You seem to be misunderstanding the argument; I'm not arguing for something new. I'm arguing that negative effects of technological shock are well-attested in the historical record: you can look back at historical data and plainly see them. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/economy/us-growth-and-employment-data-tell-different-stories.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/economy/us-growth...