Think about it, you are creating work that someone has to do so they can get paid. If that's the goal, why don't we just pay people without having to go through the hassle of creating job?
Heck, we have so much machinery and automation that feeding the population is no longer a problem, shelter might be slightly trickier, but in a simplistic view, if it takes 1% of the population to create the basic essentials(food,shelter) for everyone, why can't we just give those to citizens and let them do things they may actually enjoy?
I find it disturbing that a comment like this was actually made earnestly and not in sarcasm, and also that it has replies in the affirmative.
In short - in order to 'give' something to someone, someone else has to pay, whether in cash or in time. This is the mysterious free lunch that pops up from time to time.
If - clearly arguing by absurdity - there is so much machinery and automation that it takes 1% to feed, clothe and house the population - then one might ask - from where does the machinery and automation come from? It must be designed, created, maintained and operated. In order to be constructed, it has to be financed, the risk has to be taken, potential rewards have to be postponed.
For people to enjoy 'things that they enjoy' - it means that, instead of postponing consumption for production, it means eliminating production for people, and having their lives focussed on consumption. While, incredibly, nowadays most people can enjoy long breaks of consumption-only activity, if everyone decided to start consuming and stop producing, things would go backwards very quickly. It seems as though the 'good life' is miraculously easy - we take a day off, food is on the shelves, power is supplied to our hose, gas is available to be pumped. This gloss of good life covers up the furious production, risk and activity that goes on 24/7, globally, to make it happen.
The incredibly rich standard of living that most people reading this website enjoy is created through a system of voluntary exchange and specialization, whereby people create efficiencies by concentrating on a particular specialty, and exchanging the proceeds of that with the product of others. While there are a precious few people who have accumulated enough surplus through either hard work, theft or inheritance, this represents a tiny percentage.
The truth is - more people get to do thing they actually enjoy precisely because of the accumulated surplus of the increased productivity of people over time. But rather than rest on the laurels, most, if not all, people prefer to strive to improve their standard of living even more.
In short, what you're trying to describe is some type of utopia - a vision which has lead to the death and suffering of millions. It's dangerous thinking and I would urge you to become more educated in this area.
This is actually a paradigm I think we will be forced to explore in the coming decades. With increasing automation, it seems logical to conclude that the sum total of available commercially viable jobs will decrease with time. Not necessarily in a purely linear fashion, as new industries will emerge, but the overall trend may point downwards.
Ultimately, we may have to consider alternate ways of structuring a society. If this does come to pass, it will be a very uncomfortable transition.
It takes considerably more than 1% of the population to create the basic essentials. I think you dramatically underestimate the (non-automated) work required to make the food you eat. Farming, transportation, retail... automation hasn't reached as stage where we can just remove people from these equations.
The only thing I can think of here is that for all that we think of startups as being largely high-tech things, in reality a huge number of them are in the construction industry, in one way or another. In a word, subcontractors. And no one’s starting new granite-countertop installation companies right now. But still, startups are a decent proxy for the dynamism of an economy. And these charts don’t bode at all well, on that front.
Was going to say the same thing. The Small Business Administration (SBA)tracks a number of these 'new small businesses' which are job creation engines. Construction companies and restaurants generally lead the pack in their stats. Others have pointed out a large correlation between these companies forming and the availability of credit. Generally there is some level of capital cost to start and without functioning credit markets those businesses don't start.
Note that this article uses the term startup for any small company under one year old.
Also the underlying paper is pretty weak. The first thing the institute should have done is look at the breakdown of new companies by industry/location and see how that's change. Without doing that the claims blaming "outsourcing" and "occupational licensing" are pretty unscientific.
Yeah, the underlying paper is by the Hudson Institute, which is a right-wing think tank. Any place with a political axe to grind will bend facts to suit their hypothesis.
In any case, Felix Salmon makes this statement which struck me as odd:
> Intuitively, if people can’t find work for an existing company, they should be more likely, not less likely, to go out and found a new company themselves, instead.
So it takes less people than ever to start a company, and that's supposed to be a bad thing? They could have easily framed it as "its cheaper than ever to operate a start-up".
A more interesting angle would be to compare the total number of people employed in start-ups over the years, as a percentage of the labor force.
I would have thought this outcome logical and heartening - yet journos have a history of baby/bath-water syndrome.
If GDP is increasing (just, tick), large corporations are steady (fair assumption) then productivity increases are due to SMEs increasing productivity (ie. capital/labour ratio).
This assumed equation is qualified in commentary around VC fund size and investments - "it's the easiest and cheapest it has ever been to start a company."
This doesn't mean more start-ups, but if it were less, means less full-time equivalents for young companies.
Think SAAS, lean and cloud computing. This along with a new attitude to risk amongst investors post-GFC (no large bets), means this data makes sense yet they've got the story completely backwards.
[+] [-] analyst74|13 years ago|reply
Think about it, you are creating work that someone has to do so they can get paid. If that's the goal, why don't we just pay people without having to go through the hassle of creating job?
Heck, we have so much machinery and automation that feeding the population is no longer a problem, shelter might be slightly trickier, but in a simplistic view, if it takes 1% of the population to create the basic essentials(food,shelter) for everyone, why can't we just give those to citizens and let them do things they may actually enjoy?
[+] [-] brc|13 years ago|reply
In short - in order to 'give' something to someone, someone else has to pay, whether in cash or in time. This is the mysterious free lunch that pops up from time to time.
If - clearly arguing by absurdity - there is so much machinery and automation that it takes 1% to feed, clothe and house the population - then one might ask - from where does the machinery and automation come from? It must be designed, created, maintained and operated. In order to be constructed, it has to be financed, the risk has to be taken, potential rewards have to be postponed.
For people to enjoy 'things that they enjoy' - it means that, instead of postponing consumption for production, it means eliminating production for people, and having their lives focussed on consumption. While, incredibly, nowadays most people can enjoy long breaks of consumption-only activity, if everyone decided to start consuming and stop producing, things would go backwards very quickly. It seems as though the 'good life' is miraculously easy - we take a day off, food is on the shelves, power is supplied to our hose, gas is available to be pumped. This gloss of good life covers up the furious production, risk and activity that goes on 24/7, globally, to make it happen.
The incredibly rich standard of living that most people reading this website enjoy is created through a system of voluntary exchange and specialization, whereby people create efficiencies by concentrating on a particular specialty, and exchanging the proceeds of that with the product of others. While there are a precious few people who have accumulated enough surplus through either hard work, theft or inheritance, this represents a tiny percentage.
The truth is - more people get to do thing they actually enjoy precisely because of the accumulated surplus of the increased productivity of people over time. But rather than rest on the laurels, most, if not all, people prefer to strive to improve their standard of living even more.
In short, what you're trying to describe is some type of utopia - a vision which has lead to the death and suffering of millions. It's dangerous thinking and I would urge you to become more educated in this area.
[+] [-] doktrin|13 years ago|reply
This is actually a paradigm I think we will be forced to explore in the coming decades. With increasing automation, it seems logical to conclude that the sum total of available commercially viable jobs will decrease with time. Not necessarily in a purely linear fashion, as new industries will emerge, but the overall trend may point downwards.
Ultimately, we may have to consider alternate ways of structuring a society. If this does come to pass, it will be a very uncomfortable transition.
[+] [-] untog|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mansoor-s|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tptacek|13 years ago|reply
The only thing I can think of here is that for all that we think of startups as being largely high-tech things, in reality a huge number of them are in the construction industry, in one way or another. In a word, subcontractors. And no one’s starting new granite-countertop installation companies right now. But still, startups are a decent proxy for the dynamism of an economy. And these charts don’t bode at all well, on that front.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ig1|13 years ago|reply
Also the underlying paper is pretty weak. The first thing the institute should have done is look at the breakdown of new companies by industry/location and see how that's change. Without doing that the claims blaming "outsourcing" and "occupational licensing" are pretty unscientific.
[+] [-] shrikant|13 years ago|reply
In any case, Felix Salmon makes this statement which struck me as odd:
> Intuitively, if people can’t find work for an existing company, they should be more likely, not less likely, to go out and found a new company themselves, instead.
Why is this intuitive..?
[+] [-] ryanhuff|13 years ago|reply
A more interesting angle would be to compare the total number of people employed in start-ups over the years, as a percentage of the labor force.
[+] [-] kimmiller|13 years ago|reply
If GDP is increasing (just, tick), large corporations are steady (fair assumption) then productivity increases are due to SMEs increasing productivity (ie. capital/labour ratio).
This assumed equation is qualified in commentary around VC fund size and investments - "it's the easiest and cheapest it has ever been to start a company."
This doesn't mean more start-ups, but if it were less, means less full-time equivalents for young companies.
Think SAAS, lean and cloud computing. This along with a new attitude to risk amongst investors post-GFC (no large bets), means this data makes sense yet they've got the story completely backwards.
[+] [-] jaggederest|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dreamdu5t|13 years ago|reply
Jobs are a means to an end. They aren't a problem to solve, but what you do to solve a problem.
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ascendant|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]