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The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

economist.com

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Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#121

Post by dennisgorelik »

ScottBurson wrote: post #102
EthanHeilman wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, I, as an employer, keep my staff doing "bullshit jobs" because I want to "keep control over the lives of others." WTF?!?! Why would I do that? One reason bullshit jobs exist is because decisions are made by managers, not some ultimate rational owner who thinks only of profit. In many big companies a manager's status is based on the number of people they manage, if they invent more jobs for people they are more…

Somewhere, in the last few months -- alas, I don't recall where -- I read about a company that rates its managers on how much their teams accomplish, divided by the size of the team. They claimed, plausibly I think, that this system effectively discouraged such fiefdom-building.

More practical approach would be to simply calculate how profitable team is.

If adding new employee costs less than the overhead, then it could make sense for manager to do that.

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#122

Post by IndianAstronaut »

ap22213 wrote: post #17
danmaz74 wrote: post #3

Very interesting analysis. But they don't consider at all one very relevant change that happened during the last 30 years in most wealthy economies, especially the USA: That the taxation of the rich and the highest-earners in general was massively lowered. This contributed a lot to the concentration of wealth and capital in fewer hands.

Taxation for the purpose of running a government and providing basic services seems to be long gone. Most of the discussions these days are more about what the 'right' and 'fair' level of redistribution should be. But, the rates of taxation are so arbitrary. Legislators get together to determine fixed rates and tiers of taxation. Aside from the complexities of accounting (which should be simpler with computers), coul…

>couldn't it make more sense to tie tax rates to real mean wages?

How would that work in practice?

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#123

Post by grandalf »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #78
grandalf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that employment is not something to be overly focused on. The idea of creating millions of jobs by outlawing the combine is absurd to most people, as should be the idea of ever trying to "create jobs" via policy. In a dynamic economy there will always be lots of demand for labor. At the margins, some labor is priced very low, which is a separate social issue for which I favor some kind of welfare system.…

But why on Earth would there be any such things as jobs when algorithms can do almost all economically necessary work and people don't like working?

Well, someone needs to write the algorithms, and someone needs to play-test the behavioral wealth transfer mechanisms.

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#124

Post by kamaal »

glesica wrote: post #30
grandalf wrote: post #28

If unemployment ever becomes a problem we can simply outlaw the wheat combine, which will open up hundreds of thousands of jobs harvesting grain manually.

I hope you were being sarcastic... but in case you weren't, why would we ever create meaningless work instead of just giving people money for pursuing whatever makes them happy? A basic income guarantee seems like a much more reasonable solution than "put everyone to work digging holes and filling them in again".

>>just giving people money for pursuing whatever makes them happy? A basic income guarantee seems like a much more reasonable solution

Because recent history suggests, when offered money/stuff/income gurantee for free:

a. In the eyes of the individual receiving money, the value, importance and the perceived hard work that had to be done to earn it, as time passes, tends to zero.

b. A vast majority of people tend just take the money and chill doing nothing, while wanting others to work and make more free stuff/money for them.

c. Because a few people tend to do nothing and keep the status quo going, other people who like to break the norm and make value/money are immediately perceived as heretics who break the 'equal misery for all' norm and are perceived as evil.

d. Brilliant, hard working and creative people like to work with people of their own kind and generally go and live at places where they can find them. And such places always exist.

e. 'Right to free stuff' generally becomes the norm after a while and people who the real work are expected to make over the skies sacrifices and offer bulk of what they do 'for greater good of society'.

f. Equality for all in general tends toward, equal misery for all. Over big periods of time.

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#125

Post by dropit_sphere »

api wrote: post #65
gregpilling wrote: post #63

I am always stunned with statements like this: "For those not in the elite, argues David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, much of modern labour consists of stultifying “bullshit jobs”—low- and mid-level screen-sitting that serves simply to occupy workers for whom the economy no longer has much use. Keeping them employed, Mr Graeber argues, is not an economic choice; it is something the ru…

Bullshit jobs arise in two ways. One is through the crazy inefficiencies of huge companies and governments. This is likely not you. Second is as an emergent property of red queens races in the economy, escalating complexity or overhead that does not actually increase overall macro productivity. The latter requires at least a casual familiarity with evolutionary game theory, but once comprehend cannot be un-comprehend…

This should be higher.

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#126

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Houshalter wrote: post #103
digi_owl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example i recall Graeber using for such jobs are call center cold call marketing. Rooms filled with people who sit there all day calling number after number with the hope that whoever answers have any interest in their product.

But is that really a make-work job? I doubt they would pay people to do that if it doesn't make more money than it costs (or at least they believe it does.)

Competition traps lead to lots of things that are pointless for everyone to do but pointful for only one "defector" party to do.

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#127

Post by bboreham »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #121
ScottBurson wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhere, in the last few months -- alas, I don't recall where -- I read about a company that rates its managers on how much their teams accomplish, divided by the size of the team. They claimed, plausibly I think, that this system effectively discouraged such fiefdom-building.

More practical approach would be to simply calculate how profitable team is. If adding new employee costs less than the overhead, then it could make sense for manager to do that.

How does that work out for the person in charge of repelling cyber attacks? Not much profit in that.

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#128

Post by rumcajz »

gregpilling wrote: post #63

I am always stunned with statements like this: "For those not in the elite, argues David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, much of modern labour consists of stultifying “bullshit jobs”—low- and mid-level screen-sitting that serves simply to occupy workers for whom the economy no longer has much use. Keeping them employed, Mr Graeber argues, is not an economic choice; it is something the ru…

I've wrote down some thoughts on possible economics of "bullshit jobs" here: http://250bpm.com/blog:44

Here's the relevant part of it:

"Can we do the same trick here and stop thinking about competing firms and rather start thinking about competing individuals?

After all, firm isn't a person and can't really strive to maximise profits. Only people can.

And when you look at the problem from the point of view of a rational individual, the situation is pretty clear: I need to work to feed myself and my family. If only 50% of population is needed to do all the necessary work, I have to cope with that. I have to accept a meaningless work if that's all I can get. If it's necessary to keep the work, I have to pretend and lie and cheat and support the whole edifice of bullshit work. Damn, I even have to beg, bribe and blackmail others to create a new bullshit position for me, if I can't get an existing one.

So, in the end, large portion of the population, from CEOs to the lowliest interns, are trapped in bullshit jobs and none of them can really speak against it as they are all complicit and the only alternative they have is having no job and starving."

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#129

Post by perfunctory »

kamaal wrote: post #124
glesica wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you were being sarcastic... but in case you weren't, why would we ever create meaningless work instead of just giving people money for pursuing whatever makes them happy? A basic income guarantee seems like a much more reasonable solution than "put everyone to work digging holes and filling them in again".

>>just giving people money for pursuing whatever makes them happy? A basic income guarantee seems like a much more reasonable solution Because recent history suggests, when offered money/stuff/income gurantee for free: a. In the eyes of the individual receiving money, the value, importance and the perceived hard work that had to be done to earn it, as time passes, tends to zero. b. A vast majority of people tend just…

> recent history suggests

Could you be a little more specific? What "recent history" are you talking about? As far as I am aware some basic income experiments proved to be successful. See Mincome for example.

Re: The future of jobs: The onrushing wave

#130

Post by perfunctory »

gregpilling wrote: post #63

I am always stunned with statements like this: "For those not in the elite, argues David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, much of modern labour consists of stultifying “bullshit jobs”—low- and mid-level screen-sitting that serves simply to occupy workers for whom the economy no longer has much use. Keeping them employed, Mr Graeber argues, is not an economic choice; it is something the ru…

Have you not watched "The Office"? Or seen the "Dilbert"?
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