3 ms·
"Back in the 1960s, the economist William Baumol observed that it took exactly as much labor to play a string quartet in 1965 as it did in 1865—in economics jar
by SergeAx 5y ago
"Back in the 1960s, the economist William Baumol observed that it took exactly as much labor to play a string quartet in 1965 as it did in 1865—in economics jargon, violinists hadn’t gotten any more productive. Yet the wages of a professional violinist in 1965 were a lot higher than in 1865."
This is actually brilliant and deep. We may argue a lot that music education became more expensive, violins themselves cost more, musicians should pay their rent, which is also increased century over century, but the fact stands still: it took exactly as much labor.
Talking about the rent: housing prices are driven by the average income (because the balanced market will extract maximum wealth from its participants). So the Baumol's cost disease can be one of the key inflation factors.
- jerrre 5y agoDidn't read the full article, but couldn't you argue that with audio recording and distribution 1 hour of string quartet playing labor can yield many more person-hours of string quartet listening in 1965 than 1865?
- SergeAx 5y agoStudio recording is a different type of labor, to produce a one hour record musicians should put at least 6-8 working hours. This is for quartet, bigger orchestras will tend to take even longer to properly record. We also need to factor in a work of recording and acoustic engineers, equipment and sound stage cost. But to be precise, one full take of one hour recording will still take exactly the same amount of labor from musicians) The whole idea of record distribution is actually a different type of economy. Live broadcast would be an interesting twist in this path of reason, but it was not a thing in 1960s.
- missedthecue 5y agoEven for orchestras that don't publish albums, the musicians earn more.
- mFixman 5y ago> housing prices are driven by the average income They are driven by the average income of the wealthiest $number_of_homes renters. If there are not enough homes in a single city then a lot of people will pay very significant part of their salary to have a place to live.
- SergeAx 5y agoThis is a very valid addition that I've skipped for clarity. But rental prices are very location-bound, and we can build only that much houses in a given location.
- iso1210 5y agoYou can build up a lot, far more than is typical in much of London. There are 3.6 million dwellings [0] in the 157,000 hectares of London [1]. There's 14,000 Hectares of Park and Open Space [2]. If you quadrupled the amount of park and open space to 56,000 hectares, leaving 100,000 for housing, and built as dense as Islington or Kensington+Chelsea (not particularly known for skyrise apartments), at 70 per hectare, that would be 7 million dwellings, about twice as many as now, even with far more public open space [0] https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/number-and-density-of-dwellings-by-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/number-and-density-of-dwe... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parks_and_open_spaces_in_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parks_and_open_spaces_in_Londo...
- SergeAx 5y ago157 000 hectares is a lot (pun intended). This is not one place, price of similar flat in the center and in the outskirt would be 2-3 times different just because of the location. You cannot consider those hypothetical dwellings similar.
- hogrider 5y agoAllow me to be an armchair social scientist for a second, I think this proof that work and labor participation in the economy is firwt above all a social contract. So we did not deem musicians useless in this time and forced to change careers, we have to make them part of society still. Same reason we have bullshit jobs.
- amanaplanacanal 5y agoThe invention of recorded music had made that modern string quartet much more productive. Millions could now hear that music that maybe tens to hundreds heard in the previous century.
- SergeAx 5y agoYes, but it is totally different economy. You need producers, PR researchers, you need sound technicians, you need studios with equipment, you need cover designers, print materials, replication lines, packing lines, music shops, logistics, shop clerks, cashiers. You need playback equipment: turntables, amplifies and speakers. This was 1960s. Today you still need half of these plus all the internet infrastructure, which is not a small deal, online advertising, rights management, social media marketing, music aggregators, phones and computers and smart speakers.