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The concern is that we're soon going to reach a point where "our current economic order" - the assumption that every healthy adult should have a full-time job -

The concern is that we're soon going to reach a point where "our current economic order" - the assumption that every healthy adult should have a full-time job - is unsustainable. I wouldn't say I oppose a $15 minimum wage, and I don't think the author would either, but we do desperately need to start thinking about our transition to a post-work society and I worry minimum wage debates are sucking up a lot of the energy towards that. We risk getting stuck in a terrible equilibrium, where many people can't get jobs but all our social safety nets are built on the assumption that they can. (There's a serious argument to be made that we're already there.)

pydry 6y ago
America is at risk of running out jobs, not at risk of running out of work. It's all too easy to see a lack of infrastructure jobs, for instance, as a signal of a lack of demand. It isn't. America has crumbling infrastructure and a lack of jobs to fix it at the same time. China turning off the trade tap will likely also stimulate the creation of jobs. iPhones will need to be made at home at some point in the not too distant future and they will still need plenty of people to do so. Wealth re-redistribution will also stimulate demand, creating jobs. A lack of demand caused by a lack of wealth is not a "true" lack of demand. When society starts lowering the retirement age to 50 and nobody frets about inflation ever - THAT'S when you know that full time work is really drying up. Not happening.
wpietri 6y ago
Why do you think we'll run out of things for people to do? The history of the last 500 years or so suggests that when old jobs get optimized out of existence, there's still plenty that needs doing. When I look around, I definitely don't see a society with no unfilled needs, so I expect we can keep going quite a spell.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Labor force participation data (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001) strongly suggests that a lot of people believe we've run out of things for them to do over the last century. (The overall chart https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART is confounded by the simultaneous trend of the womens' rights movement getting women into the workforce https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300002 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300002.)
  - rhino369 6y ago
    Demographics impact this data, no? People in college, increased ability to retire, and an increase in the number of retire people (due to an aging population) all have an effect. What does the data look like from 1900-1948? I imagine WWII had an impact too. I would also consider whether the growth the welfare state is responsible for the drop--rather than just makes up for it.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    I think that's a couple of misunderstandings together. One is that the only kind of thing to do is work at a job, which is what labor force participation measures. But that's not the case at all, and it's obvious from your second graph. Do you believe that in 1950 ~70% of women were idle, doing nothing? Of course not. They were doing all sort of societally valuable work. It just wasn't in the form of a paid job. And that's my key point here: there is plenty of stuff that needs doing that would make the world better. It's just that a lot of it hasn't been converted into paid jobs that would show up in a graph like this. Just try thinking about all the things wrong with the world and ask whether more people helping with them could make them better. Secondarily, a decline in the labor force participation rate can have all sorts of causes. The formal definition is "the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years and older that is working or actively looking for work." Labor force participation rate for people 16-19 is low. Is that because there's nothing a teen could do? No, it's because they're in school. Labor force participation rate for people over 65 is even lower, ~15%. And over recent decades, we've seen that that segment of the population grow rapidly. So the labor force participation rate has declined significantly because people are living longer and enjoying retirement. And of course, there's plenty of overlap in the two factors. After my dad retired, he spent a lot of time volunteering at a school. The kids definitely needed the help, but he was unpaid. That's a great example of something for people to do that wasn't counted as part of the labor force. Similarly, my aunts spent a ton of time helping raise their grandkids after they retired. Because of politics and accounting rules, that's not a formal job, but it's absolutely socially valuable labor.
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  We've mostly run out of things for horses to do, which is why we don't see so many anymore. Automation took longer but it's getting pretty close for a lot of simple jobs at the same time.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Money represents labor, not machine time. All goods and services are ultimately the product of labor.
    - erik_seaberg 6y ago
      I can hire a guy to wash my car, or I can drop money into a machine that’s open 24/7 and doesn’t get bored. Labor to build and maintain the machine isn’t zero but it is dramatically less.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    You appear to be just repeating the claim I'm challenging. We've automated away all the simple jobs many times over. Almost all of agriculture, for example. Almost any job in the first industrial revolution. Practically any job that is embedded in a last name: Smith, Potter, Cooper, Mason, Taylor, Wright, Fletcher, Ward, Weaver, Chandler. But again, look around you: is this a world with nothing left to do?
    - erik_seaberg 6y ago
      When we invented machines that did many of the jobs horses did, we did not find other jobs for those horses to do. Now for the first time we are inventing cost-effective machines that can see and move things and apply tools without close supervision, which is all that people are doing in a lot of jobs. I’m not confident we’re going to find a similar amount of useful work that only a person could do.
      - wpietri 6y ago
        We didn't find other jobs for horses to do because horses were capital goods. That's like saying we haven't found new jobs for spinning jennies or steamboats. As to the other bit I'm not sure if that's "OMG machines will ruin us" or "OMG robots will ruin us", but the former is multiple centuries old, while the latter just turned 100. I get that you have personal fears here, but people have had personal fears about insufficient replacement work because machines since the Industrial Revolution. If you want people to take those fears seriously, you'll have to do better than "animals are people, probably". If you'd like to see it differently, try naming problems in people's lives and in the broader society. How many of those could be improved with the application of human time and attention? Lots, I say. It'll be a long time before we run out of things for people to do.
imtringued 6y ago
>the assumption that every healthy adult should have a full-time job - is unsustainable. Inflation makes sure that everyone can get a job. The fact people you even entertain this though is hilarious. The entire point of capitalism is to maintain growth and that growth can only be maintained by employing people. People hate on growth but what's the alternative? Imagine being in the 15th century and saying: This is it, people will never have a full time job again, ever. The 21th century wouldn't have happened if people thought like that. The dark ages would have lasted forever. The reason why we have so much underemployment is quite simple. Inflation has been way too low. Honestly, we have so much inflation to do that even the measly 2% that the Fed targets is way too little. Inflation has slowly picked up and it shows. Underemployment is shrinking in the US.

pydry 6y ago

America is at risk of running out jobs, not at risk of running out of work. It's all too easy to see a lack of infrastructure jobs, for instance, as a signal of a lack of demand. It isn't. America has crumbling infrastructure and a lack of jobs to fix it at the same time. China turning off the trade tap will likely also stimulate the creation of jobs. iPhones will need to be made at home at some point in the not too distant future and they will still need plenty of people to do so. Wealth re-redistribution will also stimulate demand, creating jobs. A lack of demand caused by a lack of wealth is not a "true" lack of demand. When society starts lowering the retirement age to 50 and nobody frets about inflation ever - THAT'S when you know that full time work is really drying up. Not happening.

wpietri 6y ago

Why do you think we'll run out of things for people to do? The history of the last 500 years or so suggests that when old jobs get optimized out of existence, there's still plenty that needs doing. When I look around, I definitely don't see a society with no unfilled needs, so I expect we can keep going quite a spell.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Labor force participation data (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001) strongly suggests that a lot of people believe we've run out of things for them to do over the last century. (The overall chart https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART is confounded by the simultaneous trend of the womens' rights movement getting women into the workforce https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300002 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300002.)
- rhino369 6y ago
  Demographics impact this data, no? People in college, increased ability to retire, and an increase in the number of retire people (due to an aging population) all have an effect. What does the data look like from 1900-1948? I imagine WWII had an impact too. I would also consider whether the growth the welfare state is responsible for the drop--rather than just makes up for it.
- wpietri 6y ago
  I think that's a couple of misunderstandings together. One is that the only kind of thing to do is work at a job, which is what labor force participation measures. But that's not the case at all, and it's obvious from your second graph. Do you believe that in 1950 ~70% of women were idle, doing nothing? Of course not. They were doing all sort of societally valuable work. It just wasn't in the form of a paid job. And that's my key point here: there is plenty of stuff that needs doing that would make the world better. It's just that a lot of it hasn't been converted into paid jobs that would show up in a graph like this. Just try thinking about all the things wrong with the world and ask whether more people helping with them could make them better. Secondarily, a decline in the labor force participation rate can have all sorts of causes. The formal definition is "the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years and older that is working or actively looking for work." Labor force participation rate for people 16-19 is low. Is that because there's nothing a teen could do? No, it's because they're in school. Labor force participation rate for people over 65 is even lower, ~15%. And over recent decades, we've seen that that segment of the population grow rapidly. So the labor force participation rate has declined significantly because people are living longer and enjoying retirement. And of course, there's plenty of overlap in the two factors. After my dad retired, he spent a lot of time volunteering at a school. The kids definitely needed the help, but he was unpaid. That's a great example of something for people to do that wasn't counted as part of the labor force. Similarly, my aunts spent a ton of time helping raise their grandkids after they retired. Because of politics and accounting rules, that's not a formal job, but it's absolutely socially valuable labor.
erik_seaberg 6y ago
We've mostly run out of things for horses to do, which is why we don't see so many anymore. Automation took longer but it's getting pretty close for a lot of simple jobs at the same time.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Money represents labor, not machine time. All goods and services are ultimately the product of labor.
  - erik_seaberg 6y ago
    I can hire a guy to wash my car, or I can drop money into a machine that’s open 24/7 and doesn’t get bored. Labor to build and maintain the machine isn’t zero but it is dramatically less.
- wpietri 6y ago
  You appear to be just repeating the claim I'm challenging. We've automated away all the simple jobs many times over. Almost all of agriculture, for example. Almost any job in the first industrial revolution. Practically any job that is embedded in a last name: Smith, Potter, Cooper, Mason, Taylor, Wright, Fletcher, Ward, Weaver, Chandler. But again, look around you: is this a world with nothing left to do?
  - erik_seaberg 6y ago
    When we invented machines that did many of the jobs horses did, we did not find other jobs for those horses to do. Now for the first time we are inventing cost-effective machines that can see and move things and apply tools without close supervision, which is all that people are doing in a lot of jobs. I’m not confident we’re going to find a similar amount of useful work that only a person could do.
    - wpietri 6y ago
      We didn't find other jobs for horses to do because horses were capital goods. That's like saying we haven't found new jobs for spinning jennies or steamboats. As to the other bit I'm not sure if that's "OMG machines will ruin us" or "OMG robots will ruin us", but the former is multiple centuries old, while the latter just turned 100. I get that you have personal fears here, but people have had personal fears about insufficient replacement work because machines since the Industrial Revolution. If you want people to take those fears seriously, you'll have to do better than "animals are people, probably". If you'd like to see it differently, try naming problems in people's lives and in the broader society. How many of those could be improved with the application of human time and attention? Lots, I say. It'll be a long time before we run out of things for people to do.

imtringued 6y ago

>the assumption that every healthy adult should have a full-time job - is unsustainable. Inflation makes sure that everyone can get a job. The fact people you even entertain this though is hilarious. The entire point of capitalism is to maintain growth and that growth can only be maintained by employing people. People hate on growth but what's the alternative? Imagine being in the 15th century and saying: This is it, people will never have a full time job again, ever. The 21th century wouldn't have happened if people thought like that. The dark ages would have lasted forever. The reason why we have so much underemployment is quite simple. Inflation has been way too low. Honestly, we have so much inflation to do that even the measly 2% that the Fed targets is way too little. Inflation has slowly picked up and it shows. Underemployment is shrinking in the US.