What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around? • Hacker News Board

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#41

Post by merpnderp » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:53 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #17

criley2 wrote: post #4

Is the "infinite work hypothesis" finally ending?? The answer to "what happens to workers being replaced" has always been "they'll find jobs elsewhere, every time you make a job redundant you create other new jobs", what I've seen called the "infinite work hypothesis" where there will always be new work and the problem is agility, job training, not demand.

>> every time you make a job redundant you create other new jobs That is false on its face. If you buy a robot to replace a welder, you indirectly employ the people who design, build, and maintain that robot. True, and those are higher paid jobs than the welder. But at the end of the day, the person running the factory where said robot is used did an analysis and concluded that it was cheaper to buy the robot than to…

It is not false on its face. The goods produced by the now robot welder reduce their cost; freeing up capital to flow to some other industry either as profits or lower prices. That factory isn't a closed system.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#42

Post by mc32 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:53 PM UTC

krapht wrote: post #30

wrong_variable wrote: post #9

People forget History. The two times where labor was more valuable than capital. 1 | After the black death in Europe 2 | After the second world war Most of history's default was the gilded age, the roman empire survived for 600[1] years with having worse inequality than in the modern times. Usually the only way to reverse the trend is by a large scale elimination of significant portion of young people. [1] EDIT : cor…

Or, we simply wait out the next few centuries. Reproduction rates in many developed countries have dipped below replacement. Maybe the total world population will decrease in our time.

Except now people expect retirement and pensions... Not something people back then counted on when populations of people working declined...

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#43

Post by sp332 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #15

Then the government should either directly employ people or else provide them with an income, or some combination of these.

The government employs 2.7 million civilians and well over a million people in the military. That's over 2% of the entire labor force.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#44

Post by fucking_tragedy » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

ben_jones wrote: post #5

I feel like the "infinite jobs" idea is too foundational to American culture to be completely removed. The very definition of "prosperity" includes having a job. The definition of "success" includes having a job.

For the "The End of History" hypothesis to work, the basis for capitalism supposes infinite growth to provide opportunity and prosperity for people. But capital has decided growth is too risky in many markets. It's a shame we've structured our society and economy to be dependent on the whims of capital.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#45

Post by oconnore » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #14

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is misallocation of labor. There's a huge to-do list of jobs that need to be done at almost every level, from design and build of significant infrastructure in most countries around the world, to community-level support work. It would be perfectly possible to retrain the long term unemployed for all but the most difficult design and management elements. They're not done because the metrics of Wall St…

> Allocating labor on the basis of whether or not traders and stock owners can profit in the short to medium term turns out to be an unintelligent way to strategise an economy. And yet, this turns out to be the most succesful strategy civilization has used so far.

I think you are mis-attributing our current trajectory. Most of the scientific developments that are now powering the US knowledge economy came out of government (ARPA, etc.) funded labs.

Allocating R&D funds based strictly on "whether or not traders and stock owners can profit in the short to medium term" is relatively new in the US (although you could argue it was the norm before we became a superpower). Our most exciting projects still come from outside that model -- crazy billionaires that want to go to Mars, meager NSF/NASA budgets, and things that mutually benefit Defense/DARPA and the economy.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#46

Post by fucking_tragedy » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #14

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is misallocation of labor. There's a huge to-do list of jobs that need to be done at almost every level, from design and build of significant infrastructure in most countries around the world, to community-level support work. It would be perfectly possible to retrain the long term unemployed for all but the most difficult design and management elements. They're not done because the metrics of Wall St…

> Allocating labor on the basis of whether or not traders and stock owners can profit in the short to medium term turns out to be an unintelligent way to strategise an economy. And yet, this turns out to be the most succesful strategy civilization has used so far.

Colonizing, raping and pillaging worked pretty well for the Vikings. Hell, it worked out pretty well for a lot of other civilizations, too.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#47

Post by WorldMaker » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

ben_jones wrote: post #5

I feel like the "infinite jobs" idea is too foundational to American culture to be completely removed. The very definition of "prosperity" includes having a job. The definition of "success" includes having a job.

I've described it before about how deeply American culture has a "work problem" and that it is as much a religion as anything. We don't call it a "Protestant Work Ethic" without reason, and lot of what you hear people say about jobs and work these days wouldn't sound much different from what the Puritans (who get credit as some of the earliest American colonists) preached as core to their way of life.

To some extent as the culture has gotten less dogmatic in some areas, the dogma of work has only entrenched further. (To many people the big corporate passive aggressive notes from belly of HR about the "good of the company" are the closest to people's weekly and/or daily sermons that they'll see.)

There are a lot of people, pundits especially, that see work as a moral obligation and the lack of work as a sin. I think it will take as much as anything else a new wave of religious thinking to move American culture past some hangups into a future with fewer "jobs" available. Or a redefinition of a lot more hobbies and crafts as "jobs" and "work". (I'm not sure which would be easier. There are stigmas in both directions.)

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#48

Post by mathattack » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #16

mathattack wrote: post #12

It seems like there are 2 things that can be done: 1) Make it easier for new firms of all kinds to open and create job. (Less occupational licensing requirements, etc) 2) Reduce the cost/burden of employment. (If someone has the choice to hire an employee in SF and Texas, they'll choose Texas since the laws are more business-friendly)

#2 seems more like a way to shift jobs around from one place to another than to create them

Somewhat. But there's friction from moving jobs around.

An oversimplified way to view it...

Let's say I can get $100/hour of value out of an employee. As long as I can get $100/hour of value from them, I'll hire them. Now let's say that there is $10 of regulatory burden. (Hard to fire, etc) Then I'd need $110/value to hire someone. Now let's say it costs me $5/hour in communications overhead for people out of town.

Then we have 3 scenarios: 1) $110+ in value - I can hire in either place. I prefer the HQ if the resource in CA is $5/hour cheaper. (Or measurably better)

2) $100-$105 in value - I hire in the other place.

3) Up to $105 in value - No hiring.

Lowering the regulatory burden to less than $5/hour adds to the amount of jobs people have.

Note - it's never really this simple, but it illustrates the idea that someone has to bear additional costs. When the employer and employee split it, relationships that used to net out with higher employment can end with higher unemployment.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#49

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #42

krapht wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, we simply wait out the next few centuries. Reproduction rates in many developed countries have dipped below replacement. Maybe the total world population will decrease in our time.

Except now people expect retirement and pensions... Not something people back then counted on when populations of people working declined...

Perfect! There are not enough jobs to go around, and so we have more people not working. Sounds like mission accomplished.

...we might need to work on wealth distribution, though.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#50

Post by learc83 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #12

It seems like there are 2 things that can be done: 1) Make it easier for new firms of all kinds to open and create job. (Less occupational licensing requirements, etc) 2) Reduce the cost/burden of employment. (If someone has the choice to hire an employee in SF and Texas, they'll choose Texas since the laws are more business-friendly)

Or 3) Since automation is making capital more productive at the expense of labor--tax a portion of the productivity increase and distribute it to labor.