[nathanfig]

Claude made this point while reviewing my blog for me: the mechanization of farms created a whole lot more specialization of roles. The person editing CAD diagrams of next year's combine harvester may not be a farmer strictly speaking, but farming is still where their livelihood comes from.

[dredmorbius]

Strictly speaking, farming is where all our livelihoods come from, in the greatest part. We're all living off the surplus value of food production.

(Also of other food, energy, and materials sourcing: fishing, forestry, mining, etc.)

This was the insight of the French economist François Quesnay in his Tableau économique, foundation of the Physiocratic school of economics.

[eru]

You might find https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine#Coal_butter fascinating.

> Strictly speaking, farming is where all our livelihoods come from, in the greatest part. We're all living off the surplus value of food production.

I don't think farming is special here, because food isn't special. You could make exactly the same argument for water (or even air) instead of food, and all of a sudden all our livelihoods would derive ultimately from the local municipal waterworks.

Whether that's a reductio ad absurdum of the original argument, or a valuable new perspective on the local waterworks is left as an exercise to the reader.

[lipowitz]

Removing jobs that could only be performed by those living near the particular fields with those that can be done anywhere makes jobs for the person willing to take the least satisfactory compensation for the most skill and work.

Working the summer fields was one of the least desirable jobs but still gave local students with no particular skills a good supplemental income appropriate for whichever region.

[miki123211]

depending on the job, it may also allow you to select for talent much better, which creates intense competition and raises salaries significantly.

A good example of this phenomenon is sports. Even thought it can't be done remotely, it's so talent dependent that it's often better to find a great player in a foreign country and ask them to work for you, rather than relying exclusively on local talent. If it could be a remote job, this effect would be even greater.

[eru]

Yes, but automating these away means that food becomes cheaper.

We increase the overall total prosperity with that automation.

[swader999]

Land is scarce though. The amount of software work that needs doing might not be, it could be infinite or probably more tied to electrical capacity.