12 ms·

Keynes was a little more direct: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up."

by mfoy_ 8y ago

crdoconnor 8y ago
Keynes said that the government paying people to dig holes and fill them up was sufficient to escape a liquidity trap. He didn't actually advocate nonproductive work.
- ams6110 8y ago
  There's tons of actual productive work that could be done though. Cleaning trash from streets and parks, filling potholes, fixing sidewalks, pulling weeds, painting over graffiti. These things would would make everyone's days a little nicer.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    Or even stuff that has real meaning. Rebuilding our crumbling highway system, laying fiber to the home for a next gen telecoms infrastructure. Just going back to school and getting information job skills. Child care. The list goes on and on without resorting to telephone handset cleaners.
    - vkou 8y ago
      For some reason, even when people acknowledge that there is an endless amount of busywork work that could be done, the suggestions are always meaningless fluff. Cleaning up the parks? Yeah, that's better then sitting around on your ass, watching Netflix for 8 hours, but there's so much more that people could do... Which would, of course, compete with private industry.
    - CountSessine 8y ago
      Cleaning trash from streets and parks, filling potholes, fixing sidewalks, pulling weeds, painting over graffiti. These things would would make everyone's days a little nicer. Or even stuff that has real meaning Why do you think that maintaining safe and beautiful cities has no real meaning? Someone needs to do it. Is this just elitism?
      - monocasa 8y ago
        Kind of the opposite. The very idea of paying people to pull weeds on sidewalks screams of elitism when my state doesn't even have full day kindergarten, and some of the worst roads in the country (CO).
  - crdoconnor 8y ago
    Oh I agree. High unemployment and a lot of bullshit jobs doesn't mean that we've run out of things to do. It just means that employment is being deliberately repressed and the economic system has been morphed into dysfunctional beast that serves a tiny number of privileged people.
  - dsego 8y ago
    This exists, it's called public works programmes.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest_and_Money https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employme... "If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it private enterprise on well tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is."
  - crdoconnor 8y ago
    aaand the very next sentence... "It would indeed be better to build houses and the like" It also follows on from a criticism of the economic utility of digging up gold and then burying it in the ground, which is an economic analog of digging holes and filling them in. It won't be the first or the last time that quote gets taken out of context. Rich, white men with gold in the ground prefer your misinterpretation.
    - digi_owl 8y ago
      I just copied wholesale what the wiki had. Nothing more, nothing less.
iriNjfk993 8y ago
The frustrating thing is though: we have plenty of real demand Social work, infrastructure repairs, mental health services. But all the effort coalesces around BIG Corp. and Douche Co. needs first Somehow we’re convinced that Bezos and Koch’s are more important than our neighbors Some looney economists will tell you it’s proven in physics these people are just better Ignoring the history of violent imperialism and collusion, and oppression that prevented and neutered whole swaths of people from catching up or getting ahead My take is humans are ignorant animals who are emotionally captured by novelty and special interests keep peddling it to stoke that dopamine buzz Then when you read in open access government documents they’ve been studying exactly that since WW1, and handing that research to unis who turned it into journalism, advertising, marketing, and management courses, you don’t go “oh deep state!” You go holy shit are we dumb. This is right in front of our faces, no conspiracy theory needed. Documented in official record, in plain view, how government has been dictating what we work on in the land of the free The first topic that got me onto this pattern: was doing a research paper on thorium reactors since they were all buzzwordy a few years ago In the 50s they were THE leading effort for energy That all stopped when a Naval officer realized submarines could be equipped with quieter nuclear engines and weapons and be parked on the coast of whenever undetected Thorium research was archived and we got to build unstable, by comparison, reactors as a result And then you see it’s like that all over the historical record from the era And you realize Bezos and Koch’s aren’t special. They were lucky to be alive now in a heavily curated system with a plain paper trail
- SnowingXIV 8y ago
  I might be missing a lot of what you're saying, but say I worked for FAAMG - they just pay a lot more than what my neighbor could pay me. Even if repairing the neighbors deck or planting new trees in their yard or whatever might be "better" for society than submitting code for review on some feature. I guess I'm trying to understand what you're getting at because I think a lot of people don't believe Bezos or Koch are special, but they can simply pay them more.
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    > they just pay a lot more than what my neighbor could pay me My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist specializing in early intervention. She gets paid bupkis by the children's hospital but working super interesting cases. She gets paid reasonably by the county for providing homecare to some kids who really need help as the county is the Medicaid payor of last resort and the kids really need help. She gets paid handsomely by private parties, but the work is often dull. I'm not sure people work at the corps because the pay is better. I suspect many are attracted by some of the crazy problems on offer.
PeterisP 8y ago
However, digging a hole in the ground and then filling it up is horribly, soul crushingly demotivating. Even if someone is working in a job that de facto amounts to doing just that, it should be covered up so that this fact isn't obvious and that a person can reasonably choose to ignore the truth and convince themselves that their job has some real value. Which is actually done, all kinds of internal propaganda, glorious mission statements, etc.
- mentalpiracy 8y ago
  > However, digging a hole in the ground and then filling it up is horribly, soul crushingly demotivating. Ah you see, this is why you have one person doing the digging, and another doing the filling! This way, each man goes home satisfied.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    This is not only clever, but actually a good metaphor of the activity of numerous entities.
    - bitL 8y ago
      One company does the digging, another the filling, and they are both owned by the same person in order to conceal that.
  - sorokod 8y ago
    For a second I thought this was a metaphor for software projects...
- Faark 8y ago
  > soul crushingly demotivating Probably a motivator to get a better / real job? I certainly prefer that over UBI
  - thanatropism 8y ago
    Either HN is decaying into downvoting-who-you-disagree with (which is not my recent experience), or the UBI hype train is out of control.
bluetomcat 8y ago
It is much more intellectually challenging to address the inefficiencies in the economic system by devising a global model with regard to the available resources, manpower and population needs. Call it a planned economy if you will. People should vote what the system must produce, while considering the pollution and exhaustion of finite resources. The current capitalist system is all about the individual self interest of each playing agent (company). That probably worked in the past in loosely-populated areas with lots of resources, but doesn't look like it is the way for the future.
- themacguffinman 8y ago
  People already vote for what the system must produce with their money, that's the basis of capitalist supply & demand. How can you force people to consider pollution and exhaustion of finite resources? People as a whole suck at considering things, that's why we make all kinds of institutions to work around it like representative democracy and legal systems.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  We are in a planned economy. Just not directly government planned. There are very few industries in the US that consist of free economic agents. I’d hazard to guess that most postwar US economic activity was indirectly fueled by government policy, and it has shifted in some ways to large cartels.
daxfohl 8y ago
Sounds like GDPR!
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Actually that is pretty much what we do, all the oil, coal, ore, etc dug up and turned into products that eventually end up in landfill.
wizardforhire 8y ago
We’d be better off if these same people ran hand operated gas distillers and then buried co2.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Keynes was a little more direct: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up."

by mfoy_ 8y ago

Keynes was a little more direct: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up."

Keynes said that the government paying people to dig holes and fill them up was sufficient to escape a liquidity trap. He didn't actually advocate nonproductive work.

ams6110 8y ago
There's tons of actual productive work that could be done though. Cleaning trash from streets and parks, filling potholes, fixing sidewalks, pulling weeds, painting over graffiti. These things would would make everyone's days a little nicer.
- monocasa 8y ago
  Or even stuff that has real meaning. Rebuilding our crumbling highway system, laying fiber to the home for a next gen telecoms infrastructure. Just going back to school and getting information job skills. Child care. The list goes on and on without resorting to telephone handset cleaners.
  - vkou 8y ago
    For some reason, even when people acknowledge that there is an endless amount of busywork work that could be done, the suggestions are always meaningless fluff. Cleaning up the parks? Yeah, that's better then sitting around on your ass, watching Netflix for 8 hours, but there's so much more that people could do... Which would, of course, compete with private industry.
  - CountSessine 8y ago
    Cleaning trash from streets and parks, filling potholes, fixing sidewalks, pulling weeds, painting over graffiti. These things would would make everyone's days a little nicer. Or even stuff that has real meaning Why do you think that maintaining safe and beautiful cities has no real meaning? Someone needs to do it. Is this just elitism?
    - monocasa 8y ago
      Kind of the opposite. The very idea of paying people to pull weeds on sidewalks screams of elitism when my state doesn't even have full day kindergarten, and some of the worst roads in the country (CO).
- crdoconnor 8y ago
  Oh I agree. High unemployment and a lot of bullshit jobs doesn't mean that we've run out of things to do. It just means that employment is being deliberately repressed and the economic system has been morphed into dysfunctional beast that serves a tiny number of privileged people.
- dsego 8y ago
  This exists, it's called public works programmes.
digi_owl 8y ago
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest_and_Money https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employme... "If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it private enterprise on well tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is."
- crdoconnor 8y ago
  aaand the very next sentence... "It would indeed be better to build houses and the like" It also follows on from a criticism of the economic utility of digging up gold and then burying it in the ground, which is an economic analog of digging holes and filling them in. It won't be the first or the last time that quote gets taken out of context. Rich, white men with gold in the ground prefer your misinterpretation.
  - digi_owl 8y ago
    I just copied wholesale what the wiki had. Nothing more, nothing less.

iriNjfk993 8y ago

The frustrating thing is though: we have plenty of real demand Social work, infrastructure repairs, mental health services. But all the effort coalesces around BIG Corp. and Douche Co. needs first Somehow we’re convinced that Bezos and Koch’s are more important than our neighbors Some looney economists will tell you it’s proven in physics these people are just better Ignoring the history of violent imperialism and collusion, and oppression that prevented and neutered whole swaths of people from catching up or getting ahead My take is humans are ignorant animals who are emotionally captured by novelty and special interests keep peddling it to stoke that dopamine buzz Then when you read in open access government documents they’ve been studying exactly that since WW1, and handing that research to unis who turned it into journalism, advertising, marketing, and management courses, you don’t go “oh deep state!” You go holy shit are we dumb. This is right in front of our faces, no conspiracy theory needed. Documented in official record, in plain view, how government has been dictating what we work on in the land of the free The first topic that got me onto this pattern: was doing a research paper on thorium reactors since they were all buzzwordy a few years ago In the 50s they were THE leading effort for energy That all stopped when a Naval officer realized submarines could be equipped with quieter nuclear engines and weapons and be parked on the coast of whenever undetected Thorium research was archived and we got to build unstable, by comparison, reactors as a result And then you see it’s like that all over the historical record from the era And you realize Bezos and Koch’s aren’t special. They were lucky to be alive now in a heavily curated system with a plain paper trail

SnowingXIV 8y ago
I might be missing a lot of what you're saying, but say I worked for FAAMG - they just pay a lot more than what my neighbor could pay me. Even if repairing the neighbors deck or planting new trees in their yard or whatever might be "better" for society than submitting code for review on some feature. I guess I'm trying to understand what you're getting at because I think a lot of people don't believe Bezos or Koch are special, but they can simply pay them more.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  > they just pay a lot more than what my neighbor could pay me My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist specializing in early intervention. She gets paid bupkis by the children's hospital but working super interesting cases. She gets paid reasonably by the county for providing homecare to some kids who really need help as the county is the Medicaid payor of last resort and the kids really need help. She gets paid handsomely by private parties, but the work is often dull. I'm not sure people work at the corps because the pay is better. I suspect many are attracted by some of the crazy problems on offer.

PeterisP 8y ago

However, digging a hole in the ground and then filling it up is horribly, soul crushingly demotivating. Even if someone is working in a job that de facto amounts to doing just that, it should be covered up so that this fact isn't obvious and that a person can reasonably choose to ignore the truth and convince themselves that their job has some real value. Which is actually done, all kinds of internal propaganda, glorious mission statements, etc.

mentalpiracy 8y ago
> However, digging a hole in the ground and then filling it up is horribly, soul crushingly demotivating. Ah you see, this is why you have one person doing the digging, and another doing the filling! This way, each man goes home satisfied.
- sametmax 8y ago
  This is not only clever, but actually a good metaphor of the activity of numerous entities.
  - bitL 8y ago
    One company does the digging, another the filling, and they are both owned by the same person in order to conceal that.
- sorokod 8y ago
  For a second I thought this was a metaphor for software projects...
Faark 8y ago
> soul crushingly demotivating Probably a motivator to get a better / real job? I certainly prefer that over UBI
- thanatropism 8y ago
  Either HN is decaying into downvoting-who-you-disagree with (which is not my recent experience), or the UBI hype train is out of control.

bluetomcat 8y ago

It is much more intellectually challenging to address the inefficiencies in the economic system by devising a global model with regard to the available resources, manpower and population needs. Call it a planned economy if you will. People should vote what the system must produce, while considering the pollution and exhaustion of finite resources. The current capitalist system is all about the individual self interest of each playing agent (company). That probably worked in the past in loosely-populated areas with lots of resources, but doesn't look like it is the way for the future.

themacguffinman 8y ago
People already vote for what the system must produce with their money, that's the basis of capitalist supply & demand. How can you force people to consider pollution and exhaustion of finite resources? People as a whole suck at considering things, that's why we make all kinds of institutions to work around it like representative democracy and legal systems.
Spooky23 8y ago
We are in a planned economy. Just not directly government planned. There are very few industries in the US that consist of free economic agents. I’d hazard to guess that most postwar US economic activity was indirectly fueled by government policy, and it has shifted in some ways to large cartels.

daxfohl 8y ago

Sounds like GDPR!

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

Actually that is pretty much what we do, all the oil, coal, ore, etc dug up and turned into products that eventually end up in landfill.

wizardforhire 8y ago

We’d be better off if these same people ran hand operated gas distillers and then buried co2.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]