Economists are obsessed with job creation because the leading ones started their careers in the late 70s and early 80s when the number of jobs was shrinking, but the number of people who wanted a job was growing faster than ever.
Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
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Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#12I dunno, I like working. I don't think I would want to go on an extended period without working hard. In fact, retiring early increases mortality[1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/627711
I hate to admit it, but my life just seems to be more productive and organized when I have a job eating up most of my time and forcing me to make the most out of what's left. I took a year off from work to start my own business..after about 2 weeks I was spending probably 95% of my time relaxing. I recently started a traditional job again and the amount of progress I'm making with ~2 hours of free time is greater than what it was when I had no job. It really gave me some respect for the willpower required to run your own business.
Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surveys indicate you’re in the minority. Most people don’t enjoy their job, or want to work less. We’re long overdue to move past “maximizing employment” at an economic policy level (looking at you US Federal Reserve).
The problem is how to incentivize companies to pay workers the same amount for less work. A lot of people, for example, the service industry, can't just work shorter shifts for the same pay. If your job is delivering a product then you can, and a lot of people do, work hard enough to deliver and then goof off for the remaining time. Take a Starbucks employee: They get paid per hour worked, so if they want to work les…
Raise the minimum wage while reducing the work week to 4 days for full time employment (this brings the minimum wage closer to where it should be after not being raised for decades, while also giving labor a share of the productivity gains they should’ve been receiving since the 70s).
You squeeze Capital with labor law and regulation. Any reduction in employment due to rising wages can be fixed with social support systems funded by corporate taxes that were previously tax breaks or deductions on automation expenses.
The wealth in the system exists to do this. It’s a distribution issue.
Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#14The problem is fairly simple. The actual output of society is produced by a relatively small minority of skilled individuals that are not easily replicable (ie fungibility is largely a myth).
We need those people to work a full week operating the machines that actually make all the output we all consume.
But why should they do that if nobody else is working? They could just make enough for the small set of people that are actually required to make enough stuff and stop work on Tuesday - having the rest of the week off.
So we all give up full weeks of our finite lives in solidarity with those who we need to give up full weeks of their finite lives if we're actually going to get the goods and services we need to live. And that's because we're a species that tallies our debts with each other - the reciprocity principle (https://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2016/paulus_s...)
Or to put it in other words, sharing out the needed work is rather more difficult in practice than it is in theory where fungibility is largely assumed. And the more advanced our technology, the harder the sharing becomes and the more difficult it is to maintain the illusion of sufficient reciprocity.
Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#15If you want less work, get a part time job or quit.
Which of these works in mysterious ways?
All right, we know the question is really "How do I work less, or not at all, and still get paid?", but that's being tackled by MMT and Universal Basic Income "economists."
Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#16Theoretically it's fine, why not. In practice, who would opt to coordinate twice as big group of people with halved worktime?
That's the big problem. If you cut your work week down to 20 hours, it can be tough to get anything done at all. The amount of meetings is not going to decrease because (most) managers need to waste other people's time to feel important.
Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#17I dunno, I like working. I don't think I would want to go on an extended period without working hard. In fact, retiring early increases mortality[1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/627711
I hate to admit it, but my life just seems to be more productive and organized when I have a job eating up most of my time and forcing me to make the most out of what's left. I took a year off from work to start my own business..after about 2 weeks I was spending probably 95% of my time relaxing. I recently started a traditional job again and the amount of progress I'm making with ~2 hours of free time is greater tha…
You're dealing with a mind virus, one that I'm familiar with myself: We feel like we need to spend our free time productively. I'm actively trying to get this out of my head. Not saying that I want to slack off, but I definitely need to slack off from time to time, and I struggle with allowing myself to do it.
Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#18I dunno, I like working. I don't think I would want to go on an extended period without working hard. In fact, retiring early increases mortality[1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/627711
I also like working. But I don't particularly like working to make someone else rich.
Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#19The problem is fairly simple. The actual output of society is produced by a relatively small minority of skilled individuals that are not easily replicable (ie fungibility is largely a myth). We need those people to work a full week operating the machines that actually make all the output we all consume. But why should they do that if nobody else is working? They could just make enough for the small set of people tha…
This is exactly right, and I wish I could have put it as succinctly as you. I fear it will take longer than expected for society to adapt to this dynamic.
Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate to admit it, but my life just seems to be more productive and organized when I have a job eating up most of my time and forcing me to make the most out of what's left. I took a year off from work to start my own business..after about 2 weeks I was spending probably 95% of my time relaxing. I recently started a traditional job again and the amount of progress I'm making with ~2 hours of free time is greater tha…
You're dealing with a mind virus, one that I'm familiar with myself: We feel like we need to spend our free time productively. I'm actively trying to get this out of my head. Not saying that I want to slack off, but I definitely need to slack off from time to time, and I struggle with allowing myself to do it.
This effect is particular prevalent in the US. As someone who moved here from the UK it was quite a cultural shock to realise that being "idle" was, for some reason, considered "bad".