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This is what's known as the "lump of labour" fallacy - the idea that there's a fixed amount of work that needs to be done, therefore opening the job market to m

This is what's known as the "lump of labour" fallacy - the idea that there's a fixed amount of work that needs to be done, therefore opening the job market to more workers necessarily lowers wages due to "increased supply". The reality is that increasing the supply of workers doesn't necessarily mean increased competition for jobs. More people available to work means that more can be produced across the board; each additional worker can create opportunities for further additional workers. The pie can be grown at the same time that it's sliced more ways.

deleted 6y ago
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meowster 6y ago
> each additional worker can create opportunities for further additional workers By more people working, we created more opportunities for more people to work? I think there is a fallacy within that "lump of labour fallacy". I'm not saying there is a fixed amount of work needed, but eventually you do run into economies of scale: less and less addional work is needed to support more people. Hasn't cost of living and other expenses have increased faster than wage growth? With more jobs just for the sake of creating jobs, does each additional job pay the same or more? I'm of the opinion that we need more opportunities for people to work less, so they can have more time for raising kids or persuing hobbies.
- ivanbakel 6y ago
  >By more people working, we created more opportunities for more people to work? Yes, because more workers = more people with money = more people who stimulate production through spending. The issue with the "economies of scale" argument is the same issue that the original lump of labour argument has - it assumes that there is a sensible upper bound on the amount of work people want done at any one time. The only reason more efficient workers would lead to less work per worker is if the work to be done is bounded. What history shows is that instead, more efficient workers work the same amount and produce more, and the consumption of the product of that work is effectively unbounded. For an example in tech: advancements in programming theory and practice over the last ~50 years have made it so that the modern programmer is easily able to produce the kind of programs that computers used 50 years ago in a fraction of the time it originally took to code them. Does this mean we need a fraction of the number of programmers compared to 50 years ago? No, because the improvements in efficiency have been completely offset by the demand for more complicated programs. In general, there doesn't seem to be any kind of bound on program complexity - the easier the programmer's job becomes, the greater their requirements become.
  - meowster 6y ago
    > By more people working, we created more opportunities for more people to work? What I was getting at, is that it sounds like the goal is just to work for the sake of working. (I should have put an elipsis after "to".)
Dirlewanger 6y ago
>The pie can be grown at the same time that it's sliced more ways. Except the exact opposite has happened.

deleted 6y ago

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meowster 6y ago

> each additional worker can create opportunities for further additional workers By more people working, we created more opportunities for more people to work? I think there is a fallacy within that "lump of labour fallacy". I'm not saying there is a fixed amount of work needed, but eventually you do run into economies of scale: less and less addional work is needed to support more people. Hasn't cost of living and other expenses have increased faster than wage growth? With more jobs just for the sake of creating jobs, does each additional job pay the same or more? I'm of the opinion that we need more opportunities for people to work less, so they can have more time for raising kids or persuing hobbies.

ivanbakel 6y ago
>By more people working, we created more opportunities for more people to work? Yes, because more workers = more people with money = more people who stimulate production through spending. The issue with the "economies of scale" argument is the same issue that the original lump of labour argument has - it assumes that there is a sensible upper bound on the amount of work people want done at any one time. The only reason more efficient workers would lead to less work per worker is if the work to be done is bounded. What history shows is that instead, more efficient workers work the same amount and produce more, and the consumption of the product of that work is effectively unbounded. For an example in tech: advancements in programming theory and practice over the last ~50 years have made it so that the modern programmer is easily able to produce the kind of programs that computers used 50 years ago in a fraction of the time it originally took to code them. Does this mean we need a fraction of the number of programmers compared to 50 years ago? No, because the improvements in efficiency have been completely offset by the demand for more complicated programs. In general, there doesn't seem to be any kind of bound on program complexity - the easier the programmer's job becomes, the greater their requirements become.
- meowster 6y ago
  > By more people working, we created more opportunities for more people to work? What I was getting at, is that it sounds like the goal is just to work for the sake of working. (I should have put an elipsis after "to".)

Dirlewanger 6y ago

>The pie can be grown at the same time that it's sliced more ways. Except the exact opposite has happened.