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"This division of labor has, rather than increased productivity and decreased cost, in fact increased cost due to monetary waste at each exchange." I find this
by bwd 17y ago
"This division of labor has, rather than increased productivity and decreased cost, in fact increased cost due to monetary waste at each exchange."
I find this argument to internally contradict itself in light of the fact that Western nations have a much higher standard of living. I will not disagree exchanges result in monetary waste, but in fact would argue that the increases in productivity due to specialization far outstrip the losses due to waste. The higher number of exchanges is thus evidence of the higher productivity that makes them affordable. The issue of whether there is increased productivity due to specialization is completely separate from that of whether the division of labor will result in wage slavery. There is quite a bit of evidence to support the former, while the latter appears quite speculative.
- pj 17y agoWhen I see millions, perhaps billions of people around the world living on less than $2 a day -- impossible in the west -- I can't help but disagree with you. How do you reconcile the poverty rate in the U.S. at $12,000 compared to $2 in india? It would appear that the division of labor has actually increased the cost of living -- at any standard. If you only had $2 a day in the United States, you would probably die and that is not hyperbole.
- nostrademons 17y agoNumbers are just numbers - you can set the money supply at any arbitrary point, and it'll set the price level accordingly. The real question is how much an average income will buy in goods. I don't have an answer to this, but I do have a thought experiment. How many hours do you have to work in order to afford food for a month? My own case is a little odd because my employer provides food 5 days of the week, but even if I tripled my food budget, it would take me 6 hours of (pre-tax) work to afford a month of food. How does that compare with Poland or India? Similarly, you could price other goods in hours-of-time. It costs me slightly more than a week to afford a shiny new laptop computer, while even the bargain-basement OLPC laptops cost nearly 2 months for someone living on $2/day. It costs me about 3 minutes to afford fresh fruit (really, it takes me more time to pick it out than to work for it) - how much does it cost someone in Poland?
- wlievens 17y agoWhy would you use the pre-tax number? Also, at 6 hours that means you're definitely in some top percentile of income. For me that number is at least 20 hours, and I make an above-average income for the (first-world) country I live in.
- nostrademons 17y agoBecause tax rates vary across countries, so if you're trying to compare standards of living based on real income, it's slightly less misleading than using post-tax dollars. Only slightly, though. The idea is that one should separate out differences in SOL resulting from division-of-labor vs. those relating to government policies, since the original poster's argument is that division of labor results in less overall welfare.
- bokonist 17y agoI agree completely. All poverty statistics should be denominated in eggs.