4 ms·

Because we are never satisfied with a stable standard of living; people want to live better than their parents did. Automation only decreases the need for labor

Because we are never satisfied with a stable standard of living; people want to live better than their parents did. Automation only decreases the need for labor if you hold standard of living constant.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
This comment ignores the fact that wages have stagnated while productivity has skyrocketed.
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  Wages have stagnated but total compensation hasn’t. The cost of health insurance in the US has gone up a lot and most jobs have health insurance.
  - bluntfang 9y ago
    you know that you pay for health insurance that your job provides, right?
    - barry-cotter 9y ago
      Yes, just like the employer/employee legal split of social security is an accounting fiction, not a description of tax incidence. That does not change the fact that wages/salary have been relatively flat in the US for decades but wages/salary + health insurance has very much not been flat.
jotm 9y ago
It has been constant for almost half a century for the middle class, yet everyone is working more for the same not less. How exactly can you live better than your parents, assuming they had a house, a car or two, phones, TV, computers, access to supermarkets of all kinds, enough money for living expenses and a hobby or yearly vacation...
- purple-again 9y ago
  Go watch a sitcom from the 50s and compare it your surroundings. Hopefully you come to the conclusion that your standard of living is immensely greater than theirs was. If you are thinking of things like the cost of college don’t forget to factor in how many people go to college today versus back then. If you are thinking about the cost of housing, we still have the same land and a growing population. I’m city centers the demand has multiplied significantly since then so we expect relative cost of the land to multiply.
  - rectang 9y ago
    In 50s sitcoms, you'll see people working union jobs with pensions. There are a lot fewer of those these days. Even if material wealth has improved, economic insecurity is worse. People feel worse off as a result.
    - dominotw 9y ago
      Yea especially since your skills are technologically obsolete in a less than decade. Software engineering careers for example are uphill battle post 50, you better have your nest egg and kids college funds ready by then.
  - consz 9y ago
    He was talking about his parent's quality of life -- go watch sitcoms from the 90s for that. I'm not sure how the 50s are relevant.
    - geezerjay 9y ago
      Not everyone around here is a 20yo child.
- bandrami 9y ago
  It's not that simple. Back in the 1950s, an 850 square foot home for a family of 4 was respectable middle class housing; today that wouldn't even be legal in some states, let alone socially considered "middle class". Standards of living are just incomparably higher today than 50 years ago
dalbasal 9y ago
This has generally been the standard argument since Keynes (and others) first turned out to be spectacularly wrong. We just consume more. But, I see this argument differently these days. In tech stuff, we definitely have more stuff. A phone+plan for every person over 13. Laptops for most people. But, you can't function without these. It's not really a discretionary spending. A student (for example) is at a disadvantage without those things. In fact, the student is also consuming more education then in Keynes' day. That's also a competitive consumption, that you must buy in order to participate in the job market to a greater extent then before. Housing in a lot of urban or semi-urban areas is also competitive. Median house prices in these cities is a multiple of median salary, and prices don't scale well below the median. So... I think the statement is true in an almost tautological sense. But, very little is discretionary spending. Most of it is competitive and in a competition the median person is still the median person.
- dustingetz 9y ago
  The key realization for me was that the phone-plan-at-13 isn't really optional, the kid needs it to stay competitive with the median kid
- avar 9y ago
  > you can't function without [a phone > + plan once you're 13yo, and laptop]. > It's not really a discretionary > spending. Even if I give you that a network connected phone is something a teenager absolutely must have, that still leaves the fact that most people vastly overspend on these items. Yes you might need a smartphone and a laptop for school, but those are going to cost at most $200 used, but people conflate the need for these devices with the fashion statement of owning the latest iPhone or MacBook.
  - CamTin 9y ago
    The only reason you and I can buy $200 used Thinkpads is because everyone else is clamoring to overspend for shiny new ones. If more people were OK with keeping their computers longer or buying used, then the price of used computers would go up. This would obviously be good because we would be valuing things closer to the actual benefit that they bring, but its not the case that we can ALL just have dirt-cheap few-year-old laptops.
nnq 9y ago
> we are never satisfied with a stable standard of living ...yes we are. Thankfully, nowadays more and more people "drop out" of "traditional media exposed society" and the brainwashing is starting to wear off. Too bad we're at the end of Homo Sapiens' days and there will not be any benefit to anyone though anyway (or maybe too good, a species as miserable as ours deservs being accelerated into extinction anyway)
collyw 9y ago
As someone that isn't particularly materialistic, I can afford to buy most "things". I can barely afford to buy a house where I live and I have a feeling that my pension with be worth squat when I retire.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

This comment ignores the fact that wages have stagnated while productivity has skyrocketed.

barry-cotter 9y ago
Wages have stagnated but total compensation hasn’t. The cost of health insurance in the US has gone up a lot and most jobs have health insurance.
- bluntfang 9y ago
  you know that you pay for health insurance that your job provides, right?
  - barry-cotter 9y ago
    Yes, just like the employer/employee legal split of social security is an accounting fiction, not a description of tax incidence. That does not change the fact that wages/salary have been relatively flat in the US for decades but wages/salary + health insurance has very much not been flat.

jotm 9y ago

It has been constant for almost half a century for the middle class, yet everyone is working more for the same not less. How exactly can you live better than your parents, assuming they had a house, a car or two, phones, TV, computers, access to supermarkets of all kinds, enough money for living expenses and a hobby or yearly vacation...

purple-again 9y ago
Go watch a sitcom from the 50s and compare it your surroundings. Hopefully you come to the conclusion that your standard of living is immensely greater than theirs was. If you are thinking of things like the cost of college don’t forget to factor in how many people go to college today versus back then. If you are thinking about the cost of housing, we still have the same land and a growing population. I’m city centers the demand has multiplied significantly since then so we expect relative cost of the land to multiply.
- rectang 9y ago
  In 50s sitcoms, you'll see people working union jobs with pensions. There are a lot fewer of those these days. Even if material wealth has improved, economic insecurity is worse. People feel worse off as a result.
  - dominotw 9y ago
    Yea especially since your skills are technologically obsolete in a less than decade. Software engineering careers for example are uphill battle post 50, you better have your nest egg and kids college funds ready by then.
- consz 9y ago
  He was talking about his parent's quality of life -- go watch sitcoms from the 90s for that. I'm not sure how the 50s are relevant.
  - geezerjay 9y ago
    Not everyone around here is a 20yo child.
bandrami 9y ago
It's not that simple. Back in the 1950s, an 850 square foot home for a family of 4 was respectable middle class housing; today that wouldn't even be legal in some states, let alone socially considered "middle class". Standards of living are just incomparably higher today than 50 years ago

dalbasal 9y ago

This has generally been the standard argument since Keynes (and others) first turned out to be spectacularly wrong. We just consume more. But, I see this argument differently these days. In tech stuff, we definitely have more stuff. A phone+plan for every person over 13. Laptops for most people. But, you can't function without these. It's not really a discretionary spending. A student (for example) is at a disadvantage without those things. In fact, the student is also consuming more education then in Keynes' day. That's also a competitive consumption, that you must buy in order to participate in the job market to a greater extent then before. Housing in a lot of urban or semi-urban areas is also competitive. Median house prices in these cities is a multiple of median salary, and prices don't scale well below the median. So... I think the statement is true in an almost tautological sense. But, very little is discretionary spending. Most of it is competitive and in a competition the median person is still the median person.

dustingetz 9y ago
The key realization for me was that the phone-plan-at-13 isn't really optional, the kid needs it to stay competitive with the median kid
avar 9y ago
> you can't function without [a phone > + plan once you're 13yo, and laptop]. > It's not really a discretionary > spending. Even if I give you that a network connected phone is something a teenager absolutely must have, that still leaves the fact that most people vastly overspend on these items. Yes you might need a smartphone and a laptop for school, but those are going to cost at most $200 used, but people conflate the need for these devices with the fashion statement of owning the latest iPhone or MacBook.
- CamTin 9y ago
  The only reason you and I can buy $200 used Thinkpads is because everyone else is clamoring to overspend for shiny new ones. If more people were OK with keeping their computers longer or buying used, then the price of used computers would go up. This would obviously be good because we would be valuing things closer to the actual benefit that they bring, but its not the case that we can ALL just have dirt-cheap few-year-old laptops.

nnq 9y ago

> we are never satisfied with a stable standard of living ...yes we are. Thankfully, nowadays more and more people "drop out" of "traditional media exposed society" and the brainwashing is starting to wear off. Too bad we're at the end of Homo Sapiens' days and there will not be any benefit to anyone though anyway (or maybe too good, a species as miserable as ours deservs being accelerated into extinction anyway)

collyw 9y ago

As someone that isn't particularly materialistic, I can afford to buy most "things". I can barely afford to buy a house where I live and I have a feeling that my pension with be worth squat when I retire.