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Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

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Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#211

Post by xapata »

intopieces wrote: post #179

It seems from the comments that a lot of the readers here equate "let's look at socioeconomic inequality" with "let's make sure everyone has the same socioeconomic outcome by bringing down the people who earn more." This is... a leap not found in this article. The idea is to make sure that we realize the knock-on effects of changes in the workforce / society and take measures to make sure people who have the ability…

> Giving people computers

Better is simply giving people money which they can use for their highest priorities, which may not be computers.

> Access to broadband

Competitive internet is available in larger metropolitan areas. If there's a mandate for some or all companies to provide access in rural areas, that must be subsidized by increased prices in metropolitan areas. This was accepted in the US for the bulk of the 20th century for the phone system, and resulted in amazing scientific discoveries from Bell Labs.

One alternative to a rural internet bandwidth subsidy would be subsidizing relocation. Rather than encouraging people to continue to live where jobs are scarce and services are expensive, we could encourage them to move to where labor is scarce and services are competitively priced.

> governments can nudge them into the WFH model

What's the transition cost for switching from in-office to at-home employees? If it's not an issue of transition cost, I don't think the government should be in the business of subsidizing in-home employment on an ongoing basis. It would distort the market, discouraging jobs from hair dresser to dental assistant, thereby making those services more expensive (relatively).

Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#212

Post by xapata »

gen220 wrote: post #202
bsder wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -Giving people computers > -Making sure people have access to broadband There should be a Rural Broadbandification Project set into motion so everybody gets fiber. This also has the advantage that it requires lots of labor like digging ditches. It also has the advantage that it would allow some of these high earners to move from turbo-high cost of living areas to much lower ones.

I like the idea, as a kind of spiritual successor to the Federal Aid Highway Act ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aid_Highway_Act_of_195... ), but for a different kind of transportation. I don't know if our congress could ever come together on something like this in 2020, but I'm sure some highly specific implementation could be found that everyone could more or less agree to. Is there any existing project or…

That sounds like yet another wealth transfer from metro areas to rural areas. I understand that the US government is structured that way, by the creation of the Senate, but as a city-dweller, I'm not a fan.

I'd rather pay for people to move, perhaps subsidizing housing where other services have competition and jobs are plentiful.

Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#214

Post by dan-robertson »

bsder wrote: post #194
intopieces wrote: post #179

It seems from the comments that a lot of the readers here equate "let's look at socioeconomic inequality" with "let's make sure everyone has the same socioeconomic outcome by bringing down the people who earn more." This is... a leap not found in this article. The idea is to make sure that we realize the knock-on effects of changes in the workforce / society and take measures to make sure people who have the ability…

> -Giving people computers > -Making sure people have access to broadband There should be a Rural Broadbandification Project set into motion so everybody gets fiber. This also has the advantage that it requires lots of labor like digging ditches. It also has the advantage that it would allow some of these high earners to move from turbo-high cost of living areas to much lower ones.

> There should be a Rural Broadbandification Project set into motion so everybody gets fiber. This also has the advantage that it requires lots of labor like digging ditches.

I’m not very convinced by this. 100 years ago you could employ a lot of people to dig a ditch because labour and spades were cheap. Today, I think you can’t realistically give people spades and I worry the large efficient digging machines would be too expensive or in short supply to start a massive campaign of ditch digging. They also require training. But maybe I’m wrong.

> It also has the advantage that it would allow some of these high earners to move from turbo-high cost of living areas to much lower ones.

I generally find these arguments compelling but I just looked and I can’t find much evidence of a significant benefit. Partly I think this could be a lack of studies or me misreading the data, or that it is just difficult to measure (and there are different things to measure too, eg the FTC defines broadband as >= 200kbps, which is I think not generally what is referred to when people talk about improving rural broadband). Do you know of any studies into whether improving rural broadband actually has these beneficial effects?

Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#215

Post by tathougies »

intopieces wrote: post #179

It seems from the comments that a lot of the readers here equate "let's look at socioeconomic inequality" with "let's make sure everyone has the same socioeconomic outcome by bringing down the people who earn more." This is... a leap not found in this article. The idea is to make sure that we realize the knock-on effects of changes in the workforce / society and take measures to make sure people who have the ability…

> Imagine if a single mother working for $20k a year at an office could do that work from home?

Imagine if we applied this same kind of get-it-done thinking to wondering why there were so many women raising children on their own without support from the child's father?

Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#216

Post by lukejduncan »

xapata wrote: post #211
intopieces wrote: post #179

It seems from the comments that a lot of the readers here equate "let's look at socioeconomic inequality" with "let's make sure everyone has the same socioeconomic outcome by bringing down the people who earn more." This is... a leap not found in this article. The idea is to make sure that we realize the knock-on effects of changes in the workforce / society and take measures to make sure people who have the ability…

> Giving people computers Better is simply giving people money which they can use for their highest priorities, which may not be computers. > Access to broadband Competitive internet is available in larger metropolitan areas. If there's a mandate for some or all companies to provide access in rural areas, that must be subsidized by increased prices in metropolitan areas. This was accepted in the US for the bulk of th…

"Competitive internet is available in larger metropolitan areas." I'd debate the competitive qualifier.

Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#217

Post by xapata »

lukejduncan wrote: post #216
xapata wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Giving people computers Better is simply giving people money which they can use for their highest priorities, which may not be computers. > Access to broadband Competitive internet is available in larger metropolitan areas. If there's a mandate for some or all companies to provide access in rural areas, that must be subsidized by increased prices in metropolitan areas. This was accepted in the US for the bulk of th…

"Competitive internet is available in larger metropolitan areas." I'd debate the competitive qualifier.

True. Some large metros are effectively owned by a monopoly. I'm lucky to live in a city with competitive broadband.

Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#218

Post by tathougies »

ianleeclark wrote: post #203
oneiftwo wrote: post #157

Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to perform it. Some work is physically or cognitively beyond the vast majority of the population. It doesn't make sense to expect all jobs to have all the same benefits and privelegdes. Even if we pretend that all humans are fundamentally equal in ability, inequality will…

> Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to perform it. Some work is physically or cognitively beyond the vast majority of the population. You're right. Designing shirts that work well in both the board room and discoteca is incredibly strenuous work which is why only people who have the correct inter-cranial s…

I mean... it kinda is. Not only is textile design difficult in and of itself (my mom is a very very good hobbyist seamstress, and it takes a lot of work to make even simple garments that work well and feel good), but getting the supply chain running is very difficult and beyond both the skill and patience of most people. You have to be comfortable with not only sewing, but also factory machinery. My mother wanted to make clothes at one point in her life but decided she couldn't scale because she was not comfortable with the large textile die cutting machines that she would have to use to scale.

I dunno who Wyatt Koch is, but if he has designed a shirt and managed to produce it in such volume and with such materials as to be attractive to men (I assume) with money who want to be comfortable, he should be commended. That is very difficult.

Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#219

Post by smabie »

rmrfstar wrote: post #207
Dylan16807 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income inequality is not intrinsically bad, but we have too much of it in the US. Let's get the ratio of income between the top decile and bottom decile somewhere below 10:1.

At a certain point the ratio is so high that it cannot be explained by differing abilities, and can only be explained by the structure of the market. Let's say a brain surgeon makes $2m/year. That makes sense, they are uncommonly talented. Does it make sense that someone can amass as wealth 50,000 years of brain surgeon economic output ($100bn)? If the distribution of human endowments is Gaussian, as it likely is, th…

Sure it can, because there's different dimensions of the gaussian distribution. Maybe it takes being in the top 1% on 4 different dimensions to amass over $10bn. Using the population of Earth, that means that on average only 90 such individuals exist who are in the 1% on all 4 dimensions. No one believes that intelligence is the only factor in outsized wealth accumulation.

It's clear to me though that outsized individual wealth is derivative of a myriad of different factors.

Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

#220

Post by tathougies »

rmrfstar wrote: post #207
Dylan16807 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income inequality is not intrinsically bad, but we have too much of it in the US. Let's get the ratio of income between the top decile and bottom decile somewhere below 10:1.

At a certain point the ratio is so high that it cannot be explained by differing abilities, and can only be explained by the structure of the market. Let's say a brain surgeon makes $2m/year. That makes sense, they are uncommonly talented. Does it make sense that someone can amass as wealth 50,000 years of brain surgeon economic output ($100bn)? If the distribution of human endowments is Gaussian, as it likely is, th…

> Does it make sense that someone can amass as wealth 50,000 years of brain surgeon economic output ($100bn)? If the distribution of human endowments is Gaussian, as it likely is, this level of wealth accumulation cannot be explained by superior productivity alone.

Well, yeah, if someone figured out how to operate an 10000 brains at once, then all of a sudden one would think that he ought to make 50000 years worth of brain surgeon economic output in five years.

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