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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)

#81

Post by _8j50 »

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…

> 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.

Reward for the extra day worked? If top performers are rewarded more than everyone else and working the extra day or two is optional,everyone else can opt to not work the rewardless extra day while top performers opt to work a full week for the reward.

It's much like competitive shift jobs for waiters, the good performers get the hard well tipping shifts.

Does this simply not work at scale?

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

#82

Post by Avshalom »

someguydave wrote: post #75
Avshalom wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the appearance of disconnect thatfrenchguy is talking about is the idea that designing the mold is the actual output of society despite the fact that designing the mold no matter how few people can do it is completely useless without a massive web of interconnected labor that, yes anyone can do but, must done in order for society to actually output anything. It's not a swipe at engineers, it's a swipe at engineers wh…

That fails to respond to the point that there exists skilled necessary work that armies of unskilled workers can not replace.

And there exists unskilled necessary work that armies of skilled workers can not replace.

But even beyond that there's armies of skilled necessary work that skilled workers can not replace either but seem to forget exist.

Apple doesn't exist without massive sophisticated logistical support but no one ever points out that the naval architects at Maersk or the welders at their shipyards are one piece of the process that allows any one to actually buy anything from Apple.

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

#83

Post by scottlocklin »

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 that are not easily replicable

C'mon man, that's not even remotely true. Even taking the outlier; google, $360,000 revenue generated per employee. Big deal; I'm pretty sure a decent accounting firm creates more value per employee.

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

#84

Post by nerder92 »

"Band hunter-gatherers, who, as I said, lived a life of play, are famous among anthropologists for their eagerness to share and help one another"

I can find a lot of similarities with the IT industry, or at least in the early days. This is what other industries misses a lot.

"Work less. Play more" I totally buy this slogan, our life is about us and our loved ones at the end.

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

#85

Post by Retric »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #42
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…

To rephrase: Surpluses and shortages of skilled labor are very unevenly distributed. Differences in ease of automation will magnify this. If there is a demand for 100 neurosurgeons and then cut everyone's hours by 20%, you effectively created a shortage of 25 neurosurgeons. Decreasing hours doesn't increase supply and supply of highly skilled labor is not fungible i.e. you can't trivially retrain a PhD in electrical…

We already forcibly cut doctors hours by giving them inefficient education and excessive paperwork. A doctor working 3 days a week in an efficient system could spend more time with patients in a lifetime than the average US doctor does.

The US labor market only really has shortages by design.

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

#86

Post by dvtrn »

cleandreams wrote: post #76

I live in SF and I have been in and out of the tech industry, so I know the city from both perspectives. (I now work at one of the big tech companies.) So many people outside of the industry work more than one job. They need to. Wages are too low. That is the problem, wages. Focus on that, economists, so ordinary people can get by on one job's wages.

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 had to content with a company that paid laughable wages, workers were on their own for parking, vehicle maintenance, equipment and materials, ancillary costs of maintaining their tools.

End of the day the $25 we paid to our licensed and insured electrician translated to $12/hr coming home.

I fought for a year to get those fellas better pay. Our managing company was hearing none of it. The guy who ran the entire operation took home six figures. I know this because I saw the books.

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

#87

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#88

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#89

Post by roenxi »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #50
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 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…

> while forgetting about the people ...

You might be reading the comment slightly sideways. My read was that the people you list are from small businesses creating value, and most of the tech workers are creating very little value with a few peakers who do amazing things.

> Without the drivers, Uber does not exist.

Personal bugbear, there is as yet no evidence that Uber is creating more value than it destroys. It has a pretty basic business model, trivial positive externalities and is making loss. It looks like it is slow-burning value until someone goes broke.

Uber could be cited as evidence in favour of the idea that most people don't by default know how to create value.

That might be the core disagreement here. There are a lot of people doing activities that are useful. I struggle to think of them as value creators because what they are actually doing is whatever someone tells them - there is a lack of agency in deciding what they do, so I have difficulty attributing outcomes to them. They are fungible, but the people telling them what to do are not. If you tell them to do something stupid, they will do it (as seen with Uber).

Not a comment on personal worth; economic value isn't everything. But the people who make decisions are just more important than laborers. Small businesspeople in particular are a backbone of society in a way that most workers really are not.

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

#90

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #88
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…

[deleted]

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