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If it weren't for our current economic system, having a glut of lawyers, doctors, scientists, engineers, etc, would be an incredibly good thing. For everyone.
by debacle 12y ago
If it weren't for our current economic system, having a glut of lawyers, doctors, scientists, engineers, etc, would be an incredibly good thing. For everyone.
- protomyth 12y agowhat economic system values having a glut of people of the same profession?
- debacle 12y agoOne that recognizes the realities of a globalized, post-scarcity, automated economy. Not everyone can work.
- aetherson 12y agoA post-scarcity economy is not a "reality."
- lotyrin 12y agoPost-scarcity doesn't mean "scarcity-naive" or that everything has to be non-scarce. We already have things that aren't scarce and by assuming scarcity is a factor of value, we irrationally devalue them. Post-scarcity economic systems attempt to resolve that. Look at the struggle the entertainment and journalism industries have had since the value they provide was divorced from distributing scarce print/recording media, etc. Disregard human subjective behavior, the rational behavior under capitalism before was to buy the thing you wanted, now it's to try to be a free rider, so that's what most people are doing, despite valuing creativity and journalism no less. So, instead of being able to participate in an economic system that solves the problem of compensating the creators of non-scarce information, they turn to DRM and paywalls and other ineffective solutions to try to force their bits to be effectively scarce for the majority of consumers, and therefore remain valuable and prevent the free riders. That said, a post-scarce economic system also shouldn't aim to be producing a glut of any one variety of professional, so it certainly isn't a good argument within the original thread.
- bduerst 12y agoWouldn't automation devalue a glut of people in the same profession?
- yarou 12y agoA planned economy loves having a high supply of labor in the same profession. It keeps the ball rolling ("bread for all"). A humorous example is Egypt under Nasser. You need one person to fetch the passport, one person to stamp it, another person to review it, and another person to fetch the coffee.
- wtbob 12y agoIt is a good thing; because there are so many of them (supply is high), society gets plenty of cheap labour from them all.
- ArkyBeagle 12y agoThere's a pretty good chance our economic system reflects our revealed preferences better than others. "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." - Immanuel Kant.
- aetherson 12y agoIn addition to what everyone else said, why lawyers? (Also, why doctors?) Like, I get why a naïve opinion might be "the more engineers, the better" on the simple but attractive theory that more engineers = more stuff = better for everyone. But what's the even simplistic theory that leads to "the more lawyers the better"? And surely even a simple theory says "once you have enough doctors to provide healthcare to everyone, you're kinda done with doctors."
- psbp 12y agoYeah, that statement only applies to scientists IMO, and to a huge degree. You'd be surprised to see what kind of research simply can't get funding.
- theorique 12y agoWe have a glut of lawyers. A lot of new law school graduates are getting the shaft, especially if they aren't coming from top-tier schools.