4 ms·

That majority of work only accounts for a small portion of value on the margin. You could reduce that work quite a bit with very little overall effect. In fact

That majority of work only accounts for a small portion of value on the margin. You could reduce that work quite a bit with very little overall effect. In fact, this could even increase total product since the unskilled do tend to be heavily liquidity- and risk-constrained, so freeing up some time and effort on their part (without the stress of involuntary unemployment!) would significantly incent them to do such things as retraining, starting businesses, entering formal education etc. etc. This is a major argument for UBI, in fact - which would work a lot better than cutting working time across the board by fiat!

pascalxus 7y ago
There's already a vast oversupply of high skilled non engineer white collar labor. Adding more would just exacerbate the situation
- 0815test 7y ago
  "Vast oversupply"? Wage levels/compensating differentials say otherwise. Plenty of highly-skilled (even STEM) workers are non-engineers, and they get high wages.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Not in, to pick an arbitrary example, biotech.
  - pascalxus 7y ago
    I suspect there's price anchoring going on there. They don't actually need to pay such high wages. The unemployment rate amongst MBA people is over 30%.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      > The unemployment rate amongst MBA people is over 30%. I thought we were talking about skilled workers though? (I kid, but only kinda)
sonnyblarney 7y ago
"That majority of work only accounts for a small portion of value on the margin." No, the surpluses yielded by consumers and profits by companies of those people 'doing the work' is vast. If they stopped doing it it would be a nightmare. We don't need resto servers to get English degrees, and then what, exactly? We need someone to do the resto serving. If they 'start their own business', like 'a restaurant' ... well then they're still going to need servers! If anything, wages could be increased for that cohort. Surely there's some opportunity for automation, but even then we still need people to do the work. We all like the idea of 'education' and that everyone should have an opportunity for it, but there's simply quite a bit of work to be done, we should think about how to make it work better for everyone.
- pm90 7y ago
  > we should think about how to make it work better for everyone This is one of the strongest arguments that I can see in favor of more lenient immigration, specifically to larger countries like US and Canada. The number of low-skilled laborers content with the current level of pay will keep decreasing, rendering businesses unsustainable. However, for whatever reasons, other countries are better at producing low skilled labor content with those wages. If they are so willing, they should be able to immigrate, allowing the more educated and more skilled native to work in more creative, leadership capacity. Purely from the monetary perspective, natives should see the immigrants as a win-win. However, when Immigrants cultures or skin colors are seen as being different and not worthy of being assimilated into the country, cultural reasons influence the reasoning strongly.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    Isn't that argument even stronger for allowing the higher-skilled to immigrate? They give you a lot more bang for the same or lower effort spent on assimilation.
    - pm90 7y ago
      From the perspective of American society, yes. From the perspective of Native born Americans, no. Because these skilled workers would be competing for similar jobs. However, it’s possible that the Skilled Immigrants + Native Born Americans create a synergy that works even better, so IDK. It seems hard to do thought experiments with this stuff.

pascalxus 7y ago

There's already a vast oversupply of high skilled non engineer white collar labor. Adding more would just exacerbate the situation

0815test 7y ago
"Vast oversupply"? Wage levels/compensating differentials say otherwise. Plenty of highly-skilled (even STEM) workers are non-engineers, and they get high wages.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Not in, to pick an arbitrary example, biotech.
- pascalxus 7y ago
  I suspect there's price anchoring going on there. They don't actually need to pay such high wages. The unemployment rate amongst MBA people is over 30%.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    > The unemployment rate amongst MBA people is over 30%. I thought we were talking about skilled workers though? (I kid, but only kinda)

sonnyblarney 7y ago

"That majority of work only accounts for a small portion of value on the margin." No, the surpluses yielded by consumers and profits by companies of those people 'doing the work' is vast. If they stopped doing it it would be a nightmare. We don't need resto servers to get English degrees, and then what, exactly? We need someone to do the resto serving. If they 'start their own business', like 'a restaurant' ... well then they're still going to need servers! If anything, wages could be increased for that cohort. Surely there's some opportunity for automation, but even then we still need people to do the work. We all like the idea of 'education' and that everyone should have an opportunity for it, but there's simply quite a bit of work to be done, we should think about how to make it work better for everyone.

pm90 7y ago
> we should think about how to make it work better for everyone This is one of the strongest arguments that I can see in favor of more lenient immigration, specifically to larger countries like US and Canada. The number of low-skilled laborers content with the current level of pay will keep decreasing, rendering businesses unsustainable. However, for whatever reasons, other countries are better at producing low skilled labor content with those wages. If they are so willing, they should be able to immigrate, allowing the more educated and more skilled native to work in more creative, leadership capacity. Purely from the monetary perspective, natives should see the immigrants as a win-win. However, when Immigrants cultures or skin colors are seen as being different and not worthy of being assimilated into the country, cultural reasons influence the reasoning strongly.
- 0815test 7y ago
  Isn't that argument even stronger for allowing the higher-skilled to immigrate? They give you a lot more bang for the same or lower effort spent on assimilation.
  - pm90 7y ago
    From the perspective of American society, yes. From the perspective of Native born Americans, no. Because these skilled workers would be competing for similar jobs. However, it’s possible that the Skilled Immigrants + Native Born Americans create a synergy that works even better, so IDK. It seems hard to do thought experiments with this stuff.