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This hinges on a common fallacy that insists there are a fixed number of jobs. If it wasn't possible to expand opportunities for employment, we would have run

This hinges on a common fallacy that insists there are a fixed number of jobs. If it wasn't possible to expand opportunities for employment, we would have run out of jobs as a country of 5.3 million people in 1800. As we automate, new labor emerges. Trade has taken a huge cut of the US textiles industry. But in the early 1800s, a textiles industry on the scale of what we have would have been inconceivable. Many families were making clothes from sheep to stockings, or grew a quarter acre of flax to begin the hard strenuous work of breaking it down and turning it into a scratchy fabric. They had a couple outfits and called it good. http://www.connerprairie.org/education-research/indiana-history/clothing-in-the-1800s-1 http://www.connerprairie.org/education-research/indiana-hist... If you told those people about a society where even a median income would let you buy a variety of shirts with different patterns and levels of comfort, then just throw them out or give them away each season if they fade a bit, they would have just stared back at you slackjawed. As far back as the BLS has data, the employment-population ratio has stayed within a narrow band around 60%. That strongly suggests there are feedback mechanisms that create new opportunities even when underlying sectors and conditions drastically change. The future of labor will probably surprise us just as much as the farmers in the 1800s. We'll have people do things that we can't even imagine how it would be efficient or profitable to hire out. On the order of unlikeliness of hiring someone to brush your teeth, or sing your theme song when you walk into rooms. EDIT: Added BLS point, we have no historical evidence of labor/population ratios shifting in the way people argue is imminent. It climbed sharply in '83 and dropped like a rock in '07. Those were not due to either automation or trade. It's hard to link to BLS, but basically go here, then expand back to 1947: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000

marcosdumay 10y ago
>This hinges on a common fallacy that insists there are a fixed number of jobs. There's a very common fallacy that says that people have an unlimited amount of desires. Urban people (that are most) consume basically all the time, so you won't get all those new jobs unless you greatly increase the complexity of people's desires (we are doing that) or automate consumption.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  If you just take a single desire--to stay young and healthy--it's not hard to imagine almost infinite job growth potential. The desire is not complex, but satisfying it will be.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> This hinges on a common fallacy that insists there are a fixed number of jobs. It has nothing to do with that at all. What it hinges on is that companies will pay lower wages when it's more profitable. The thing that allows high wages against labor competition is high productivity, so that labor is a smaller proportion of total costs and companies are under less pressure to reduce wages.
Spooky23 10y ago
The problem is you skipped 200 years. I was well clothed in 1987. Most of the textiles I was wearing were manufactured in the Carolinas. My parents also were buying clothes in 1967. Their stuff was made in the Carolinas and Central/Western New York. No homespun. Today, I'm fortunate to have a lot more money relatively speaking than my family and buy nice stuff. With the exception of a couple of suits, a few of my wife's dresses and some Irish linen, every piece of fabric in my home is milled and sewn in China, India, Bangledesh, or Columbia. The descendants of the people who made clothes for my parents 50 years ago or my childhood self 30 years ago are mostly on social security disability, in the military, or working some garbage service job.
JabavuAdams 10y ago
The problem is that jobs aren't nearly so fungible. In the software industry, those of us who succeed are used to constantly retraining ourselves, on our own dime. This simply isn't true for most workers. Why aren't those coal miners retraining as data scientists? Everyone knows coal is on the way down, right?
randallsquared 10y ago
On the order of unlikeliness of hiring someone to brush your teeth, or sing your theme song when you walk into rooms. But that kind of personal service is something we see less of, now, not more. The middle class in the US is rich compared to lords and ladies of 200 years ago, but have no personal servants. Software developers and medical doctors and middle executives could hire batmen and butlers and maids, but mostly do not, even when the money to do so is just sitting in their bank account and they complain about how little time they have to clean and service their house, cars, etc. Why is that?
- frobozz 10y ago
  1: Automation. Availability of white goods is the reason why most people don't have servants. If I had a spare full-time wage hanging around, I don't think I could find enough work for a servant to do in my house. 2: We don't have full-time personal servants, but a lot of people I know have a char who comes once a week; take their cars to a garage for servicing; buy prepared food; pay a window cleaner every so often; get the car cleaned whilst doing something else etc. I'd also dispute the "richer than lords and ladies" statement, I think it selects one definition of "rich" and ignores the rest. Yes, we have cars, electronic entertainment, indoor plumbing, free education, and access to healthcare beyond the wildest dreams of our 18th century forebears. However, I couldn't live off income from the tenants on my estate, no matter how well I manage it, or how frugally I live. At my income, I certainly couldn't afford to employ, feed and house the 15 or so employees in a typical aristocratic household (one could argue that some of those are now white goods, which I can afford). Nor would I be able to maintain both a large house in my seat and a smaller (yet still substantial) one in Mayfair (as well as membership of White's and Brooks's). I doubt if I could afford a small country cottage, a studio flat in London, and membership of a gym.
- brownbat 10y ago
  I didn't literally mean those options, or even personal service. I meant even if I knew what it would be, no one would believe me, because it would sound insane.

marcosdumay 10y ago

>This hinges on a common fallacy that insists there are a fixed number of jobs. There's a very common fallacy that says that people have an unlimited amount of desires. Urban people (that are most) consume basically all the time, so you won't get all those new jobs unless you greatly increase the complexity of people's desires (we are doing that) or automate consumption.

snowwrestler 10y ago
If you just take a single desire--to stay young and healthy--it's not hard to imagine almost infinite job growth potential. The desire is not complex, but satisfying it will be.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> This hinges on a common fallacy that insists there are a fixed number of jobs. It has nothing to do with that at all. What it hinges on is that companies will pay lower wages when it's more profitable. The thing that allows high wages against labor competition is high productivity, so that labor is a smaller proportion of total costs and companies are under less pressure to reduce wages.

Spooky23 10y ago

The problem is you skipped 200 years. I was well clothed in 1987. Most of the textiles I was wearing were manufactured in the Carolinas. My parents also were buying clothes in 1967. Their stuff was made in the Carolinas and Central/Western New York. No homespun. Today, I'm fortunate to have a lot more money relatively speaking than my family and buy nice stuff. With the exception of a couple of suits, a few of my wife's dresses and some Irish linen, every piece of fabric in my home is milled and sewn in China, India, Bangledesh, or Columbia. The descendants of the people who made clothes for my parents 50 years ago or my childhood self 30 years ago are mostly on social security disability, in the military, or working some garbage service job.

JabavuAdams 10y ago

The problem is that jobs aren't nearly so fungible. In the software industry, those of us who succeed are used to constantly retraining ourselves, on our own dime. This simply isn't true for most workers. Why aren't those coal miners retraining as data scientists? Everyone knows coal is on the way down, right?

randallsquared 10y ago

On the order of unlikeliness of hiring someone to brush your teeth, or sing your theme song when you walk into rooms. But that kind of personal service is something we see less of, now, not more. The middle class in the US is rich compared to lords and ladies of 200 years ago, but have no personal servants. Software developers and medical doctors and middle executives could hire batmen and butlers and maids, but mostly do not, even when the money to do so is just sitting in their bank account and they complain about how little time they have to clean and service their house, cars, etc. Why is that?

frobozz 10y ago
1: Automation. Availability of white goods is the reason why most people don't have servants. If I had a spare full-time wage hanging around, I don't think I could find enough work for a servant to do in my house. 2: We don't have full-time personal servants, but a lot of people I know have a char who comes once a week; take their cars to a garage for servicing; buy prepared food; pay a window cleaner every so often; get the car cleaned whilst doing something else etc. I'd also dispute the "richer than lords and ladies" statement, I think it selects one definition of "rich" and ignores the rest. Yes, we have cars, electronic entertainment, indoor plumbing, free education, and access to healthcare beyond the wildest dreams of our 18th century forebears. However, I couldn't live off income from the tenants on my estate, no matter how well I manage it, or how frugally I live. At my income, I certainly couldn't afford to employ, feed and house the 15 or so employees in a typical aristocratic household (one could argue that some of those are now white goods, which I can afford). Nor would I be able to maintain both a large house in my seat and a smaller (yet still substantial) one in Mayfair (as well as membership of White's and Brooks's). I doubt if I could afford a small country cottage, a studio flat in London, and membership of a gym.
brownbat 10y ago
I didn't literally mean those options, or even personal service. I meant even if I knew what it would be, no one would believe me, because it would sound insane.