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Except we've redefined what "the level at which a human can subsist on". Go 50, 100 or 200 years back and look at the kind of life most citizens lived. It was f

by RyanZAG 10y ago

Except we've redefined what "the level at which a human can subsist on". Go 50, 100 or 200 years back and look at the kind of life most citizens lived. It was far below what even a person without a job today has - and a person without a job has an incredible amount of free leisure time compared to the 18 hour days that were common even 100 years ago. The simple fact is that welfare and minimum wages have removed many jobs from the economy, and those jobs that were removed kept the economy at full employment. There's no real change aside from us effectively banning some jobs. Remove the ban, remove welfare, and we'd have full employment again. Is that a good thing to do? Probably not, but it's an important point to understand that the author completely left out of his essay. You're not going to find a good solution if you don't even stop to consider how we got here.

gordaco 10y ago
Not really. I think most of the jobs are being lost because of the improvements in productivity. We need less people to do the same job, because we have a lot of machines and automation. So, even if there is more work to do (because there are more people on the Earth now than 100 years ago), there is relatively less "work per person" to do. I know this is not exact (lump of labor fallacy) but I think it explains a lot of what's happening right now. The saddest thing, for me, is the effect on economy. Since the corporate earnings remain the same but the automation means that less workers get paid (and, when controlling for inflation, workers don't get paid much more, except in a few select industries), this means that the owners keep the rest, and this is why the gap between poor and rich people is widening so fast.
- gabesullice 10y ago
  What you're seeing is "creative destruction". If you focus on any one industry or sector for a short period of time, then yes, there's less work to go around. But if you widen your lens across time and industries, what you'll see is that these jobs will be reallocated to more productive uses of human effort. That is, automation has made these people's effort relatively less productive compared to a machine, so they need to find work in a different field. I'm not saying that this process is all sugar and rainbows, losing your job to automation _is hard_. Some will never recover. However, human society has always valued what is scarce. What will be scarce in the future is products and services made by human hands. Already we see this happening. Visit a farmer's market - see all the hand-crafted soaps? If you could have a new desk from Ikea or made with hand hewn wood, engraved and embellished by a true craftsman, which would you prefer? It sounds trite today, but as our most basic necessities continue to be met at ever cheaper rates, we'll start trading our labor for better, higher quality things. Where quality is measured in human ingenuity and artistic beauty. We can see this shift all around us. The rise in natural grocery chains, farmer's markets, Etsy. There are hundreds if not thousands of individuals who have quit their jobs to become full time YouTube creators. I know that it all sounds banal, but it's because it is currently only the wealthiest in society who at this moment can afford to shop exclusivly at Whole Foods. However, in a truely vibrant economy, one that embraces change and makes reallocation of effort as smooth as possible, one with ample access to capital, one with low barriers to entry, will bring these luxuries of today to society as a whole tomorrow. And it will probably happen faster than human history has ever made it happen before. We're just impatient and spoiled by a world that's changing ever more quickly.
elementalest 10y ago
Welfare is meant to help provide a minimum living standard. Society generally agrees that living below these levels is not acceptable to allow (though perhaps survivable). It is therefore seen as more of a human right in western worlds. Remove the ban? Watch a whole range of job wages plummet, and a whole range of people fall into poverty. People will have to work horrendous hours, or in horrendous conditions just to get enough to survive. This will only increase the income inequality, making it harder for the poor to make a living. The employment numbers may have increased - but at what cost? More civil unrest, more crime, more people in hopeless situations. Whilst you realise its not a good idea, you seem to trivialise it. I'm sure the author did consider this point. They realised that - we didn't get here simply because we introduced welfare and minimum wage - and that getting rid of them isn't a valid approach to get to full employment. Its something so obvious its not worth discussing.

by RyanZAG 10y ago

gordaco 10y ago

Not really. I think most of the jobs are being lost because of the improvements in productivity. We need less people to do the same job, because we have a lot of machines and automation. So, even if there is more work to do (because there are more people on the Earth now than 100 years ago), there is relatively less "work per person" to do. I know this is not exact (lump of labor fallacy) but I think it explains a lot of what's happening right now. The saddest thing, for me, is the effect on economy. Since the corporate earnings remain the same but the automation means that less workers get paid (and, when controlling for inflation, workers don't get paid much more, except in a few select industries), this means that the owners keep the rest, and this is why the gap between poor and rich people is widening so fast.

gabesullice 10y ago
What you're seeing is "creative destruction". If you focus on any one industry or sector for a short period of time, then yes, there's less work to go around. But if you widen your lens across time and industries, what you'll see is that these jobs will be reallocated to more productive uses of human effort. That is, automation has made these people's effort relatively less productive compared to a machine, so they need to find work in a different field. I'm not saying that this process is all sugar and rainbows, losing your job to automation _is hard_. Some will never recover. However, human society has always valued what is scarce. What will be scarce in the future is products and services made by human hands. Already we see this happening. Visit a farmer's market - see all the hand-crafted soaps? If you could have a new desk from Ikea or made with hand hewn wood, engraved and embellished by a true craftsman, which would you prefer? It sounds trite today, but as our most basic necessities continue to be met at ever cheaper rates, we'll start trading our labor for better, higher quality things. Where quality is measured in human ingenuity and artistic beauty. We can see this shift all around us. The rise in natural grocery chains, farmer's markets, Etsy. There are hundreds if not thousands of individuals who have quit their jobs to become full time YouTube creators. I know that it all sounds banal, but it's because it is currently only the wealthiest in society who at this moment can afford to shop exclusivly at Whole Foods. However, in a truely vibrant economy, one that embraces change and makes reallocation of effort as smooth as possible, one with ample access to capital, one with low barriers to entry, will bring these luxuries of today to society as a whole tomorrow. And it will probably happen faster than human history has ever made it happen before. We're just impatient and spoiled by a world that's changing ever more quickly.

elementalest 10y ago

Welfare is meant to help provide a minimum living standard. Society generally agrees that living below these levels is not acceptable to allow (though perhaps survivable). It is therefore seen as more of a human right in western worlds. Remove the ban? Watch a whole range of job wages plummet, and a whole range of people fall into poverty. People will have to work horrendous hours, or in horrendous conditions just to get enough to survive. This will only increase the income inequality, making it harder for the poor to make a living. The employment numbers may have increased - but at what cost? More civil unrest, more crime, more people in hopeless situations. Whilst you realise its not a good idea, you seem to trivialise it. I'm sure the author did consider this point. They realised that - we didn't get here simply because we introduced welfare and minimum wage - and that getting rid of them isn't a valid approach to get to full employment. Its something so obvious its not worth discussing.