Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
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Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#2You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be conditioned to the word 'free', and slowly refuses to pay for anything in those categories. The cumulative market shrinks as result, leading to more companies shutting down and more layoffs.
Oh, but there's advertising, one say. And there's the unlimited amount of venture capital funding these 'free' companies. Well, if we keep losing jobs in valuable sectors because we keep giving things away for free, how will people pay for products that will sustain advertising budgets in those companies? Will we just keep selling advertising to each other? And at a certain point in the economy, consumer is more conscious about price than brand (like now), in which case advertising will start to falter.
So the next time you give away products for free, you should think about whether or not it'll cause you to lose your company/job in the future.
Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#3You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be conditioned to the word 'free', and slowly refuses to pay for anything in those categories. The cumulative market shrinks as result, leading to more companies shutting down and more layoffs. Oh, but there's advertising, one say. And there's the unlimited amount of vent…
at the same time, you're describing an economy generating a whole lot of wellbeing and welfare. Unemployment and redundancy are dirty words, but if part of a stable economy generating what we need, perhaps we should reconceptualise redundancy as a good thing? Individuals have always wanted robots doing our chores so they have more time with our families. Can't society think the same way?
Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#4His definition for "ephemeralization" is "doing more with less", which is strange since my academic background in economics teaches me the word for this is nothing more than "efficiency".
So many of his claims supporting his "net destroyer of jobs argument" contain no real analysis are amount to fallacies exposed by the history of economic progress. At almost any point in history you could make an almost identical argument about something else where efficiency improvements reduce the number of jobs in one particular industry. People used to also worry that more women getting into the work force would reduce the jobs "available for men". Classic "lump of labor fallacy": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
Even all this aside, and sweeping away any historical parallels (one of which he mentions - Ford) where the ultimate conclusion flatly contradicts his pessimism, there's a healthy dose of "make work bias" implicit in the entire article. It's still puzzling to me why people focus so much on work as being something desirable to per-sue in it's own right. Work is the price we have to pay for consumption: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter:...
This statement alone completely blows away his credibility to speak on economics: "And for all its vaunted technological prowess, the United States hasn’t outpaced the rest of the world in GDP growth". It's well understood in growth economics that we wouldn't expect advanced economics such as the United States to outpace growth of 3rd world countries playing "catch up". He could do the same analysis against modern, industrialized countries instead and come to a very different conclusion. Even if this statement was accurate, it's a complete non-sequitur in support of his overall claim.
It's funny that the second part of his article back-tracks from his original claims and contains far more sense than the first part. "Ephemeralization [READ: efficiency] itself might eventually give rise to new types of jobs." That's exactly right, and has been true for centuries without fail.
Finally, it's embarrassing that he chooses to quote Tyler Cowen, a respectable economist who would would surely call out this article more forcefully than I.
Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#5You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be conditioned to the word 'free', and slowly refuses to pay for anything in those categories. The cumulative market shrinks as result, leading to more companies shutting down and more layoffs. Oh, but there's advertising, one say. And there's the unlimited amount of vent…
Yet another absolutely classic example of both the "lump of labor fallacy" and "make work bias".
When are we going to starting teaching more Economics and less Literature in high school?
Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#6You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be conditioned to the word 'free', and slowly refuses to pay for anything in those categories. The cumulative market shrinks as result, leading to more companies shutting down and more layoffs. Oh, but there's advertising, one say. And there's the unlimited amount of vent…
All the more ironic that the next item in my feed reader is, "The Problem Began When the Invention of the Spear Reduced the Price of Food":
http://cafehayek.com/2011/05/the-problem-began-when-the-inve...
How fitting to this discussion.
Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#7You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be conditioned to the word 'free', and slowly refuses to pay for anything in those categories. The cumulative market shrinks as result, leading to more companies shutting down and more layoffs. Oh, but there's advertising, one say. And there's the unlimited amount of vent…
at the same time, you're describing an economy generating a whole lot of wellbeing and welfare. Unemployment and redundancy are dirty words, but if part of a stable economy generating what we need, perhaps we should reconceptualise redundancy as a good thing? Individuals have always wanted robots doing our chores so they have more time with our families. Can't society think the same way?
Perhaps in a perfect world, we won't need jobs or money. But in our current state/world, we (everyone in the world) still need jobs and money for limited resources to survive like energy, clean water, food, stable infrastructure, materials and people's time. And everybody is competing for those right now, hence worldwide inflation and companies/governments reducing jobs to stay afloat.
Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#8You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be conditioned to the word 'free', and slowly refuses to pay for anything in those categories. The cumulative market shrinks as result, leading to more companies shutting down and more layoffs. Oh, but there's advertising, one say. And there's the unlimited amount of vent…
Yet another absolutely classic example of both the "lump of labor fallacy" and "make work bias". When are we going to starting teaching more Economics and less Literature in high school?
That's true. We should also teach how to present a valid, explanatory counterargument instead of thoughtless one liner.
Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#9You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be conditioned to the word 'free', and slowly refuses to pay for anything in those categories. The cumulative market shrinks as result, leading to more companies shutting down and more layoffs. Oh, but there's advertising, one say. And there's the unlimited amount of vent…
Yet another absolutely classic example of both the "lump of labor fallacy" and "make work bias". When are we going to starting teaching more Economics and less Literature in high school?
[deleted]
Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back
#10technology doesn't take jobs away. humans can repurpose, roombas can't.