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The downside to broadening the talent pool for design/manufacturing is that it means workers now have to be among the best in the world to get business and thus

The downside to broadening the talent pool for design/manufacturing is that it means workers now have to be among the best in the world to get business and thus earn a good living. It no longer suffices to be the best in a local region. If each local region needs its own widget factory, then to become a top widgetsmith you only have to compete with the local widgetsmith talent pool. Just as there can be many high school star athletes across the world, there can be many top widgetsmiths within their local widget factories across the world, even if each is likely mediocre relative to the global pool of widgetsmiths. Now the widget market has globalized. To become a top widgetsmith, you now need to be the best in the world. There is no room for locally optimal widgetsmiths when the market can globally optimize, just as there’s no room for most star high school athletes at the NBA. The upside is that the entire world gets much better widgets. The downside is that you can only make a good living as a widgetsmith if you’re the absolute best in the world. Local markets lead to redundancy, which is globally inefficient but locally optimal.

BurningFrog 5y ago
The upside I think of is that this enables more specialization and "division of labor", which is one of the basic drivers of prosperity.
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  True, but a downside is that there may be a correlation between specialization/division of labor and depression/ennui. I don't have any data handy, but I think we often feel greater satisfaction working through all of the aspects to creating something versus being a "cog in the machine" and specializing in one role. E.g. I'd rather build a boat - have a hand in the design, source the materials, and actually physically build it rather than work in a factory and operate a machine that spits out rudders all day, every day. Of course, the boats created via mass production are probably going to be cheaper and in many ways better than what a novice manages to put together.
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    Even someone who does "the whole job" is still generally a cog in the machine, as few jobs are in themselves extremely important in the global scheme of things. Indeed t here have been plenty of forgettable prime ministers and presidents. The question is just how much diversity of tasks it takes to feel engaged, and how much scope of responsibility it takes to feel like what you're doing matters. The exception would be someone like a subsistence farmer. But hell I'd rather work in a factory.
  - krisoft 5y ago
    Your boat comparision is nonsensical. To build a boat on your own the way you described is crazy resource intensive. You need land to store the boat, you need materials, you need tools, you need free time to work on it. This is basically a wealthy persons pet project. Depending on the size of the boat and your abilities you will be pumping a crazy amount of resources into this for years. The second type is a job. You need a car to get to the factory, and an able body. Within a week to a month you would be expecting your first paycheck. You are basically asking if a wealthy person can feel higher amount of satisfaction than a worker class. It’s cliche that money doesn’t bring happyness, but if you are investing that much resources into a project it better be making you happy or what are you doing with your life? The other problem with the comparision is that people who have a boat project are a self-selected bunch for those who would enjoy building a boat. If i would have the resources to build a boat I wouldn’t. It is a risky, hard, and back breaking work. The reward at the end is that you have a boat, which I don’t want. If you give me resources and force me to build my own boat I will be misserable. Is it a surprise then that this wealthy self-selected bunch has a higher statisfaction with their pet project than a factory worker? How could this ever be a fair comparision?
- toyg 5y ago
  * was one of the basic drivers, when labour was scarce and specialization rare. We're now headed to a situation where labour is abundant (demographic trends being what they are, globally) and specialization trivially achieved (hello youtube). I'm not so sure it will continue to be an advantageous trait.
wolverine876 5y ago
> that it means workers now have to be the best in the world to get business and thus earn a good living. It no longer suffices to be the best in a local region. Yes, though for most jobs there is far more demand than can be met by the best in the world. When someone needs a lawyer or software developer, they are very unlikely to hire the best in the world.
- MontyCarloHall 5y ago
  > When someone needs a lawyer or software developer, they are very unlikely to hire the best in the world. Certainly not the absolute best in the world, but they are still unlikely to hire a thoroughly mediocre worker who in a past world devoid of easy global communication and travel would have only been hired into a high-paying role by virtue of the fact that they were the only available worker with the necessary skills, since sourcing better talent from a global pool was much harder.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Agreed; it is more competitive, and therefore work should become more specialized. I wonder if it drives unemployment; I expect that it drives people to tasks they are more productive in (and perhaps more interested in, given greater options). But let's also remember that much of the world doesn't use the Internet. In the US, large segments of the population lack computers (beyond phones) and high speed internet access. I know that during the pandemic, schools in poor districts had the problem that many of their students lacked those tools for remote learning. And for FWIW, there are exceptions where the absolute best in the world dominate the market, such as in entertainment where the top musical performers, athletes, etc. collect almost all the revenue.
- dntrkv 5y ago
  And not only that, a lot of the improvements in these tools, services, and supply chains means you can design, prototype, and mass manufacture a product without buy-in from a major corp. So many of the new products I buy are designed by small teams, or in some cases, one-man operations. It's funny how we went from a single craftsman making the whole product, to massive corporations making all the products, and now the internet, with the access it has given us to information and the global supply chain, has allowed us to go back to that world where we can leverage the talents of an individual and mass production at the same time. I think the Framework laptop is a prime example of this. The fact that a small team like that can "produce" a product of such quality is mind blowing. It seems to me that the general quality of items has been on a steady rate of improvement again, rather than the race-to-the-bottom that seemingly every industry experienced during the 90s and early 00s.
inglor_cz 5y ago
"workers now have to be the best in the world to get business and thus earn a good living" This is extra pronounced for singers, actors etc., but not as much for people such as software engineers. A mediocre programmer that implements functionality that you need is much more valuable for you than a star programmer immersed in his UltraFastXMLParserForHaskell library and does not take side jobs.
ajmurmann 5y ago
A big question to be is if https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox applies to this type of labor.
BuckRogers 5y ago
Very well put. Excellently stated. That's one of the concepts that many have thought about, because we all feel the effects, but aren't exactly sure how to articulate. I'm going to be thinking about that comment! It definitely applies to software. It's why trades are a much better career option, local will never not matter in that case. The best 'star high school' welders and electricians are always going to be desirable, as no one is flying in the best in the world for every little job. Most of us, except the best in the world among us, messed up going into software. The script completely flipped on this since I was a child in the 80s and was dreaming of becoming a programmer as I am now.
- flerchin 5y ago
  Software dev wages are through the roof as a counterargument.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Most aren't - most are quite comfortable but 100k is still above the median for developers.
    - BuckRogers 5y ago
      That's what I see. As the OP I can say that my wages aren't through the roof, and I don't think they ever will be. I'm a developer and under 100K. I'm not sure anyone I know in this industry has a "through the roof" salary. I don't know anyone at Google. Given how hard I work for the money I do make, I'm expecting to unionize or go solo with my own thing, before my salary somehow goes through the roof. Either of those are more likely.
      - flerchin 5y ago
        I dunno. I've never worked a FAANG, but wage increases have been great for every new job. Maybe my US perspective is showing? Maybe move to a hotter market?
njharman 5y ago
Yep. That is why society is (has to) move into post-employment era. It's no longer required or even beneficial for everyone to be employed and/or employed to the extreme degree they are now (~50% of waking hours).
- quacked 5y ago
  I agree with you, but in a different way. Our supply chains that we need to stay alive (medical, shipping, farming, manufacturing) run on extreme conditions and extreme working hours, paid for by extreme money, designed by extreme intellect. We could all stop working, but the workers in those industries (from the CEO down to the laborer) would have to keep their extreme conditions and extreme hours. If, somehow, we all started working for the supply chain, I think we could rebalance those hours so that they weren't as extreme. As it stands, solutions like UBI still require sweatshops, global shipping, global finance, etc. while simply letting people who aren't on the hook to provide a vital service to sit around and gaze at navels.
  - njarboe 5y ago
    Maybe a system where people work in the extreme system from 20-30, get paid highly, and save enough to not need to work again in their early 30's. Seems like a much better system than UBI.
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
It's noteworthy that you're talking about the market for products, not services. Services generally don't scale like products do. We need more plumbers than toilet manufacturers.

BurningFrog 5y ago

The upside I think of is that this enables more specialization and "division of labor", which is one of the basic drivers of prosperity.

lastofthemojito 5y ago
True, but a downside is that there may be a correlation between specialization/division of labor and depression/ennui. I don't have any data handy, but I think we often feel greater satisfaction working through all of the aspects to creating something versus being a "cog in the machine" and specializing in one role. E.g. I'd rather build a boat - have a hand in the design, source the materials, and actually physically build it rather than work in a factory and operate a machine that spits out rudders all day, every day. Of course, the boats created via mass production are probably going to be cheaper and in many ways better than what a novice manages to put together.
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  Even someone who does "the whole job" is still generally a cog in the machine, as few jobs are in themselves extremely important in the global scheme of things. Indeed t here have been plenty of forgettable prime ministers and presidents. The question is just how much diversity of tasks it takes to feel engaged, and how much scope of responsibility it takes to feel like what you're doing matters. The exception would be someone like a subsistence farmer. But hell I'd rather work in a factory.
- krisoft 5y ago
  Your boat comparision is nonsensical. To build a boat on your own the way you described is crazy resource intensive. You need land to store the boat, you need materials, you need tools, you need free time to work on it. This is basically a wealthy persons pet project. Depending on the size of the boat and your abilities you will be pumping a crazy amount of resources into this for years. The second type is a job. You need a car to get to the factory, and an able body. Within a week to a month you would be expecting your first paycheck. You are basically asking if a wealthy person can feel higher amount of satisfaction than a worker class. It’s cliche that money doesn’t bring happyness, but if you are investing that much resources into a project it better be making you happy or what are you doing with your life? The other problem with the comparision is that people who have a boat project are a self-selected bunch for those who would enjoy building a boat. If i would have the resources to build a boat I wouldn’t. It is a risky, hard, and back breaking work. The reward at the end is that you have a boat, which I don’t want. If you give me resources and force me to build my own boat I will be misserable. Is it a surprise then that this wealthy self-selected bunch has a higher statisfaction with their pet project than a factory worker? How could this ever be a fair comparision?
toyg 5y ago
* was one of the basic drivers, when labour was scarce and specialization rare. We're now headed to a situation where labour is abundant (demographic trends being what they are, globally) and specialization trivially achieved (hello youtube). I'm not so sure it will continue to be an advantageous trait.

wolverine876 5y ago

> that it means workers now have to be the best in the world to get business and thus earn a good living. It no longer suffices to be the best in a local region. Yes, though for most jobs there is far more demand than can be met by the best in the world. When someone needs a lawyer or software developer, they are very unlikely to hire the best in the world.

MontyCarloHall 5y ago
> When someone needs a lawyer or software developer, they are very unlikely to hire the best in the world. Certainly not the absolute best in the world, but they are still unlikely to hire a thoroughly mediocre worker who in a past world devoid of easy global communication and travel would have only been hired into a high-paying role by virtue of the fact that they were the only available worker with the necessary skills, since sourcing better talent from a global pool was much harder.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Agreed; it is more competitive, and therefore work should become more specialized. I wonder if it drives unemployment; I expect that it drives people to tasks they are more productive in (and perhaps more interested in, given greater options). But let's also remember that much of the world doesn't use the Internet. In the US, large segments of the population lack computers (beyond phones) and high speed internet access. I know that during the pandemic, schools in poor districts had the problem that many of their students lacked those tools for remote learning. And for FWIW, there are exceptions where the absolute best in the world dominate the market, such as in entertainment where the top musical performers, athletes, etc. collect almost all the revenue.
dntrkv 5y ago
And not only that, a lot of the improvements in these tools, services, and supply chains means you can design, prototype, and mass manufacture a product without buy-in from a major corp. So many of the new products I buy are designed by small teams, or in some cases, one-man operations. It's funny how we went from a single craftsman making the whole product, to massive corporations making all the products, and now the internet, with the access it has given us to information and the global supply chain, has allowed us to go back to that world where we can leverage the talents of an individual and mass production at the same time. I think the Framework laptop is a prime example of this. The fact that a small team like that can "produce" a product of such quality is mind blowing. It seems to me that the general quality of items has been on a steady rate of improvement again, rather than the race-to-the-bottom that seemingly every industry experienced during the 90s and early 00s.

inglor_cz 5y ago

"workers now have to be the best in the world to get business and thus earn a good living" This is extra pronounced for singers, actors etc., but not as much for people such as software engineers. A mediocre programmer that implements functionality that you need is much more valuable for you than a star programmer immersed in his UltraFastXMLParserForHaskell library and does not take side jobs.

ajmurmann 5y ago

A big question to be is if https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox applies to this type of labor.

BuckRogers 5y ago

Very well put. Excellently stated. That's one of the concepts that many have thought about, because we all feel the effects, but aren't exactly sure how to articulate. I'm going to be thinking about that comment! It definitely applies to software. It's why trades are a much better career option, local will never not matter in that case. The best 'star high school' welders and electricians are always going to be desirable, as no one is flying in the best in the world for every little job. Most of us, except the best in the world among us, messed up going into software. The script completely flipped on this since I was a child in the 80s and was dreaming of becoming a programmer as I am now.

flerchin 5y ago
Software dev wages are through the roof as a counterargument.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Most aren't - most are quite comfortable but 100k is still above the median for developers.
  - BuckRogers 5y ago
    That's what I see. As the OP I can say that my wages aren't through the roof, and I don't think they ever will be. I'm a developer and under 100K. I'm not sure anyone I know in this industry has a "through the roof" salary. I don't know anyone at Google. Given how hard I work for the money I do make, I'm expecting to unionize or go solo with my own thing, before my salary somehow goes through the roof. Either of those are more likely.
    - flerchin 5y ago
      I dunno. I've never worked a FAANG, but wage increases have been great for every new job. Maybe my US perspective is showing? Maybe move to a hotter market?

njharman 5y ago

Yep. That is why society is (has to) move into post-employment era. It's no longer required or even beneficial for everyone to be employed and/or employed to the extreme degree they are now (~50% of waking hours).

quacked 5y ago
I agree with you, but in a different way. Our supply chains that we need to stay alive (medical, shipping, farming, manufacturing) run on extreme conditions and extreme working hours, paid for by extreme money, designed by extreme intellect. We could all stop working, but the workers in those industries (from the CEO down to the laborer) would have to keep their extreme conditions and extreme hours. If, somehow, we all started working for the supply chain, I think we could rebalance those hours so that they weren't as extreme. As it stands, solutions like UBI still require sweatshops, global shipping, global finance, etc. while simply letting people who aren't on the hook to provide a vital service to sit around and gaze at navels.
- njarboe 5y ago
  Maybe a system where people work in the extreme system from 20-30, get paid highly, and save enough to not need to work again in their early 30's. Seems like a much better system than UBI.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

It's noteworthy that you're talking about the market for products, not services. Services generally don't scale like products do. We need more plumbers than toilet manufacturers.