Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#21

Post by petra » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #14

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 Israeli Army is mostly made out of 18 year old people who get drafted for 3 years, reserves that come for a few weeks a month, and a small percent of career employees.

Many of those people fullfil complex , Critical roles, successfully.

But most of it's "employees" are easily replaceable.

So why won't this work in the general economy ?

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#22

Post by perfmode » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #21

neilwilson wrote: post #14

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 Israeli Army is mostly made out of 18 year old people who get drafted for 3 years, reserves that come for a few weeks a month, and a small percent of career employees. Many of those people fullfil complex , Critical roles, successfully. But most of it's "employees" are easily replaceable. So why won't this work in the general economy ?

the command structure consists of lifers.

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#23

Post by bantersaurus » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

Time for a period of degrowth, the only way we are going to deal with depleting natural resources and global warming.

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#24

Post by imgabe » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #14

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…

We are not in a static equilibrium. I don't think anyone believes we have reached an ideal state of technology where we don't need to progress any further. People who are not producing things that are immediately useful can be working to improve processes for building things, inventing new things, doing basic research, and supporting people who do that.

There's also the issue that the population is constantly growing and in flux in different areas. Nobody knows the exact right amount of stuff to make to serve everybody and underestimating can have dire consequences and get lots of people killed, so we can and should make more than might be necessary.

It's a huge oversimplification to say we just need 100 units of food so get the 5 people to make 20 units of food each and then we're good, no need for anyone else to work.

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#25

Post by ameliaquining » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

Are economists obsessed with job creation? Government economists tend to focus on it because that's literally their job, but my sense of academic economists has always been that they're pretty good at not eliding distinctions like between employment and economic value.

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#26

Post by kachurovskiy » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #6

I 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

Sometimes I think that decades of spending all our productive time in a 'work' setting make people feel like they like it, might be a basic psychological adaptation mechanism. In fact, being an able human and having months of time at my disposal is scary :)

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#27

Post by klyrs » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #6

I 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

> In fact, retiring early increases mortality[1].

I suspect that has a lot to do with the structure of our society, and our relationship with work.

From TFA:

> In fact, quantitative studies revealed that the average adult hunter-gatherer spent about 20 hours a week at hunting and gathering, and a few hours more at other subsistence-related tasks such as making tools and preparing meals (for references, see Gray, 2009). Some of the rest of their waking time was spent resting, but most of it was spent at playful, enjoyable activities, such as making music, creating art, dancing, playing games, telling stories, chatting and joking with friends, and visiting friends and relatives in neighboring bands. Even hunting and gathering were not regarded as work; they were done enthusiastically, not begrudgingly. Because these activities were fun and were carried out with groups of friends, there were always plenty of people who wanted to hunt and gather, and because food was shared among the whole band, anyone who didn’t feel like hunting or gathering on any given day (or week or more) was not pressured to do so.

It's quite possible to like work. But that isn't really true in a lot of jobs. People who are overworked and underpaid; low-level bureaucrats; middle managers... there's a lot of thankless, unrewarding jobs out there, where people can't see a benefit to their work, where people see a negative impact of their work on society.

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#28

Post by sonnyblarney » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #14

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"

No, the majority of work is laborious and tedious and it's not a 'small number of people' doing it.

Do you realize how many retail service workers, customer service workers, restaurant servers, cooks, line pikers etc. there are?

This idea that somehow it's just a 'small number of folk working' is mythology.

And a lot of middle management is brutal - though it is often very inefficient, it's still essential.

Yes, a lot of jobs could dissapear overnight, but most could not.

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#29

Post by sooheon » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #21

neilwilson wrote: post #14

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 Israeli Army is mostly made out of 18 year old people who get drafted for 3 years, reserves that come for a few weeks a month, and a small percent of career employees. Many of those people fullfil complex , Critical roles, successfully. But most of it's "employees" are easily replaceable. So why won't this work in the general economy ?

A draft does not guarantee efficiency or efficacy of work. The Korean military has a monopoly on labor of a certain age (and gender), any roles it needs will of course be filled, but from experience the arrangement is rather far from peak human output.

Re: Economists Are Obsessed with Job Creation – How About Less Work? (2017)

#30

Post by perfunctory » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #14

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…

I am not really sure I understand what you are trying to say. 40 is not a magic number. Just like we once standardised workweek to be 40 hours, we can now (re)standardise it to be 32, or 16. Why not.

I've been working 4 days a week or less for more then 5 years already. No problems.