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> Consider an "individuals" example: I am a better cook than the average fast food worker, and I am also better than them at building databases. So why don't I
by summerdown2 10y ago
> Consider an "individuals" example: I am a better cook than the average fast food worker, and I am also better than them at building databases. So why don't I split my time between my office and the fry vat? And why does the fast food worker have a job? Because if I do one thing, I can't do another - I have limited hours.
Do you think there's a scarcity assumption built into the theory, then? Because it seems to me that if you could perfectly automate fast food cooking, you could flood the market and still spend a full working day doing database creation - thus stopping my comparative advantage working.
- snrplfth 10y agoScarcity still applies to robots/automation. Robots are not free, the resources used to make and maintain them are not free, and they still exist in a world where information and time are limited. Note that the fast-food-worker, definitionally, has another thing they're least bad at that they now move to - which is really the story we've seen with all of the process of automation. Now, if you had robots that could replicate themselves indefinitely, with effectively unlimited resources, then yes, comparative advantage would cease to apply in the sense I'm talking about. But then we'd have a Star Trek replicator economy, and we wouldn't have to worry about not having an "income" from work.