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Is remote work bad for the economy?

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Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#181

Post by psychoslave »

michaelteter wrote: post #74

This applies everywhere: just because a job or business has existed does not mean it has a right to exist forever. This is not being harsh on people; it's just a reality. The blacksmiths in the horse and buggy days saw demand for their services fall when time and technologies changed. The coal miners began losing their jobs when we realized that coal as fuel was more harmful than it was beneficial. History is full of…

>Eventually that group will be like the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs prospered for million years, you know? And only global scale mass extinction ended their reign.

So, though it appears we do are well on the road for such a huge collapse, I’m not sure your analogy was the best one here. :D

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#182

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

f6v wrote: post #123
chii wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This obviously is a financial loss for the economy it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth!

> Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? Starting wars to fuel arms industry worked just fine so far.

Sounds like Zorg’s speech: https://youtu.be/KXwqUMkXFiI?t=50

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#184

Post by pcthrowaway »

strken wrote: post #159
friendzis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wellllll.... debatable. This argument of expense rerouting is a bit flawed. Suppose working from home saves one some money that they spend elsewhere. Working from the office they spend that money on fuel, indirectly spend on road maintenance, directly spend on vehicle maintenance where the shop in turn spends on parts and tools and so on. The money one spends circulates in the economy much longer and reaches more act…

This is close to the broken window fallacy. We tend to forget the flow of money is an indirect proxy for work performed. If 20% of construction workers are freed up from fixing roads because of lower traffic, they don't just sit around crying, they find other work to do. Same with tech workers, same with everyone. That's a net good because the work they'll move to will by definition be worth paying someone to do. Was…

Traffic in general is also much more efficient with a small reduction in traffic.

If we have 10% fewer people commuting during work hours, then traffic might move twice as efficiently. Of course, that uses less fuel, which is bad for the economy /s

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#185

Post by chii »

badpun wrote: post #132
chii wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This obviously is a financial loss for the economy it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth!

> it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Not neccessarily, people have less costs now, so some people can now just choose to work less - which would shrink the economy.

> so some people can now just choose to work less

that's good - they're able to recover some of their time. Just because this "own time" doesn't count towards official GDP, doesn't mean it isn't an improvement.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#186

Post by hardware2win »

briga wrote: post #25

Bad for which economy? Countless programmers over the years have packed up their bags and moved away from their small towns to live in big expensive tech hubs. This has certainly been beneficial for the economy of large metros--they didn't pay to educate these workers and in many cases these workers (including myself) were raised and educated in completely different countries. So these metros have a huge pool of high…

Indeed

I live far, far away from my company, in tiny village while earning salary like people working there

and im spending that money locally, thus supporting local businesses and communities

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#187

Post by jrumbut »

mathgeek wrote: post #165
jrumbut wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably true to an extent, but I do think this analysis fails to capture the very real upheaval that happened in the life of a hypothetical blacksmith or wainwright that ended up at a car factory. A job isn't just a financial transaction. It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet. There is a career progression that they had planned on, they made choices about where to live and all kinds of other t…

> A job isn't just a financial transaction. It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet. It doesn’t have to be. For hundreds of years in a large part of the world, a job for most people was whatever the local lord told you to do. Before and during that, it was whatever you were born into. History does noy dictate the present or the future.

They don't have to be, but they are. And we ignore that our peril.

I'm not arguing against working from home, I think working from home is great. I'm arguing that to make progress we need to consider things like "now that so many people are working from home, what do we do to help the people who have been affected negatively by this change?" People like baristas, gas station attendants, auto mechanics, people whose livelihoods depended on everyone commuting.

In prior changes, a wave of economic growth took care of their needs. I'm not sure that's going to happen here, so I think we will need to be more intentional about it.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#188

Post by criddell »

gepardi wrote: post #66

Remote work is great for: - People who want more quality time with family - Environment. Less pollution. - Businesses who can save money by not needing an office. If “the economy” doesn’t like it, it needs to adapt. The economy should support people, not the other way around.

I agree. To me it’s like asking if an employer giving employees paid time off (vacation days) is bad for the economy.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#189

Post by AllegedAlec »

thundergolfer wrote: post #17
NickBusey wrote: post #5

The author's answer to the title question seems to be: No. Which I agree with. If the answer was "Yes" however, I would question if that's even a bad thing to begin with. If our economy is reliant on people driving to an office and spending their money at a restaurant, then our economy is pretty terrible to begin with.

Spending money at restaurants is great, way better than everybody sitting at home eating their own lunches. I suspect massive adoption of restaurants would be more efficient too, if we cared about that primarily. Inner city areas full of people chatting in restaurants and cafes at lunchtime and after work are the best. > Then you get these articles about how unhealthy life is in the city. You know; mobile phone tumou…

YMMV. The 'hustle and bustle' of the city is something many people would rather avoid.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#190

Post by lotsofpulp »

f6v wrote: post #123
chii wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This obviously is a financial loss for the economy it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth!

> Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? Starting wars to fuel arms industry worked just fine so far.

The distinction is breaking someone else’s windows. Plus you need to win, not just start the war, and extract some resources from the someone else.
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