4 ms·

How about the creation of good jobs?

• danielweber 14y ago
  That's probably worse. A worker whose labor is worth $10 an hour is not going to benefit from a bunch of jobs that are priced at $40 an hour.
  • patdennis 14y ago
    The value of labor isn't inherent, it's determined by the market. Ditch digging is worth less than programming in the market only because there are more ditch diggers than programmers. If you can afford to educate people to the point where they have the choice to do something beyond digging ditches, the value of ditch digging labor rises to more accurately reflect how difficult the work is. Hard labor is only worth $10 an hour when a society is unable to provide enough opportunity. Edit: What I'm trying to say is that laborers will benefit from the higher paying jobs, but only if a society can provide enough educational opportunity that it will shrink the number of people who have to do the labor. Social mobility is the key.
    • grandalf 14y ago
      While social mobility is important, look at the speed at which the economy transitions. There are tremendous costs imposed by corporate/social welfare programs that prop up industries... they insulate workers from economic reality for a while and then suddenly reality catches up. We define ourselves by our training, our job, and we expect the economy to stand still and allow us to continue doing something we were trained to do decades ago... all the way until retirement. We feel indignation when a job goes away, and we feel that it's appropriate to be proud of skills that the economy no longer needs. This is absurd. Learn something new. Society provides plenty of opportunity, the problem is that people have unrealistic expectations of what amount of effort ought to result in a particular standard of living and a particular level of job security.
    • danielweber 14y ago
      <i>Ditch digging is worth less than programming in the market only because there are more ditch diggers than programmers.</i> Is that the only reason? Surely the labor supply matters, but so does the value of the work to others.
      • patdennis 14y ago
        Hard labor is valuable. Sure, it's difficult to get around when your GPS software is buggy. But's its also hard to get around if nobody has built any roads. Generally speaking, our economy doesn't accurately price in how exhausting and difficult it is to work with your hands because there's less of a barrier to entry when it comes to labor. If there was equal opportunity, there would be a larger number of people competing for white collar jobs in an air conditioned office.
• tomjen3 14y ago
  That would be disaster. Good jobs are essentially highly paid office jobs with good benefits -- and the easiest way to create more of those is to outlaw the computer, which would mean that thousands of workers would be needed to do reports for companies, the federal government, etc. But it would also destroy a great source of real wealth.
  • leot 14y ago
    To me, good jobs are satisfying, economically productive and reasonably well-compensated ones. You know, the ones you get from having a well-educated and empowered workforce.
  • rhizome 14y ago
    Good jobs are essentially highly paid office jobs with good benefits Where do you get this? Take a look at the median-salary multiple for buying a house 50 years ago vs. today. Used to be you could be a grunt and buy a house.
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]