131–140 of 186 posts
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> And there exists unskilled necessary work that armies of skilled workers can not replace. I think this is false. Unskilled work is easy to teach and learn, by definition. All you need is an "army" and the unskilled work can be easily fulfilled.
Well then it'd be an army of unskilled labor wouldn't it.
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Wish there were more comments about this. Like you, I too worked in an industry that wasn’t technology (home repair services, carpenters, electricians and plumbers), and saw it for what it was. It’s atrocious what some of these people are asked to do and the wages they’re expected to perform at. But beyond that, even wages aren’t even the entire picture. I live in Chicago. I managed a fleet of workers who not only ha…
Labor’s been screwed the last 50 years. What kind of six figures are we talking, mid?
The kind that go into his bank account? Is there another kind I'm unaware of presently-I'm unsure how to answer your question here?
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"Vast oversupply"? Wage levels/compensating differentials say otherwise. Plenty of highly-skilled (even STEM) workers are non-engineers, and they get high wages.
I suspect there's price anchoring going on there. They don't actually need to pay such high wages. The unemployment rate amongst MBA people is over 30%.
I thought we were talking about skilled workers though?
(I kid, but only kinda)
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Well then it'd be an army of unskilled labor wouldn't it.
Yes, but the point was that one side could learn to do the other side's job, but not the other way around.
The 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…
Unproductive people must do pointless work or the productive people will be unhappy. But conversely, the productive people are paid less than the value they create, to keep the unproductive people happy. Why didn't Norman Borlaug die the richest man alive? Most people have never even heard of him. It's human instinct that only people of great social status are allowed great wealth. Obviously the CEO has to be paid mo…
The trouble with that is that there is a fallacy of composition there. The only thing you can have in that system is more money. You can't have more stuff because by definition there is no more stuff being added to the pubic value pool.
And if you have more money, but the same amount of stuff, then all that happens is prices go up. Unless you believe more people than now value money for its own sake.
Trying to hide a transfer using a money illusion only works for so long. Then people work out they are being fiddled and have the system shut down politically. Which is historically what has happened in every single case it has been tried.
Alms to the poor is resented not just by those forced to provide the alms but by the poor themselves who resent being patronised and seen as useless.
Such systems are generally put forward by those who believe they can value signal to their peers by being the ones handling out the alms.
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Yes, but the point was that one side could learn to do the other side's job, but not the other way around.
Only if you take as given that people doing unskilled labor are to a one doing it because they are incapable of anything else.
The 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…
> The actual output of society is produced by a relatively small minority of skilled individuals that are not easily replicable This speaks personally to me as why tech workers (and multi-generation urbanites) are seen as widely disconnected: being persuaded a small number of people "create value" while forgetting about the people building your stuff, growing your food, extracting your oil (and killing the planet in…
Noone really likes to talk about that because that hits our morality itch, but thats how it is. Without slavery-like labour, our society would collapse.
The 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…
> The 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). This is an HN conceit that’s not actually true. Take something like health care. It takes a large number of individuals to produce health care services, and technology hasn’t really reduced that amount. The other day, I needed…
https://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-12-08-1449597231-8924...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labor’s been screwed the last 50 years. What kind of six figures are we talking, mid?
What kind of six figures are we talking, mid? The kind that go into his bank account? Is there another kind I'm unaware of presently-I'm unsure how to answer your question here?
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/inequal...
