Technology = Unemployment, Yes OR No !!!
jim blair
Shaun Jackson wrote:
In the 60's the unemployment rate was 2%, by the '70's the natural rate
was up and in the '80's and 90's the natural rate has risen to
approximately 7% (at least in Australia anyway - the point is that the
natural rate of unemployment has increased over time). Now, the increase
has been largely blamed on factors such as higer wages, wage expectations
and govt. interference. But what about technology?
Although technology creates new jobs(technicians etc) surely it destroys
many more workers, particularly low-skilled workers. Isn't it inevitable
that technology removes the need for labour in the performance of
repetitive tasks or low-skilled jobs. Surely then this creates a dilemma
for the labour market.
As technology continually improves, less labour is needed to produce the
good or service leading to higher unemployment. Ultimately this leads to
a higher natural rate of unemployment.
Could this be right? Please try to find flaws in this argument? I
welcome your response..
Hi,
Things to keep in mind (for the USA, this may not apply to Australia).
The unemployment rate is not always measured the same way, and clearly
the EMPLOYMENT rate (fraction of working age population WITH a job) is
much higher than in the 60's and 70's.
So you can say that both employment and unemployment are higher than
then.
Read the review of "The END of WORK" on my web page.
--
,,,,,,,
_______________ooo___( O O )___ooo_______________
(_)
jim blair (jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu) For a good time call
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4834
John McCarthy
Jim Blair asks whether technological improvements necessarily reduce
employment. That would be true if the total production of goods and
services remained the same. However, we are nowhere near saturating
the demand for goods, services and leisure. As it happens, the rate of
unemployment today is less than it was 100 years ago.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
ZB
On 18 Dec 1996 23:54:13 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
wrote:
But you need to bare in mind two considerations. One, the true
unemployment rate is not correctly stated in official unemployment
figures as it does not include people who have given up looking for
work paying a livable wage and two, there has now become a wide
discrepancy between the service jobs that require a 2 paycheck
household just to live from paycheck to paycheck and the high paying
but fewer jobs in the technology fields.
F. Prefect
There is a theory that states that if anyone
discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it
is hear,it will instantly disappear and be replaced
be something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There
is another theory that states this has already
happened......D. Adams
John McCarthy
In article <32ba9944...@nntp.ix.netcom.com> gar...@ix.netcom.com (ZB) writes:
> On 18 Dec 1996 23:54:13 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
> wrote:
>
> >Jim Blair asks whether technological improvements necessarily reduce
> >employment. That would be true if the total production of goods and
> >services remained the same. However, we are nowhere near saturating
> >the demand for goods, services and leisure. As it happens, the rate of
> >unemployment today is less than it was 100 years ago.
> But you need to bare in mind two considerations. One, the true
> unemployment rate is not correctly stated in official unemployment
> figures as it does not include people who have given up looking for
> work paying a livable wage and two, there has now become a wide
> discrepancy between the service jobs that require a 2 paycheck
> household just to live from paycheck to paycheck and the high paying
> but fewer jobs in the technology fields.
It probably wasn't correctly estimated for 1896 either. Remember,
there was no unemployment insurance in 1896.
jim blair
John McCarthy:
Jim Blair asks whether technological improvements necessarily reduce
employment. ...
Hi,
Just to keep the attributions straight, it was Shaun Jackson who raised
the question.
I said that he should read the review of Rifkins book "The END of Work"
on my web page for a discussion of this topic. (on this issue, I am on
your side, I think) :-)
Edward Flaherty
j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) writes:
> Jim Blair asks whether technological improvements necessarily reduce
> services remained the same. However, we are nowhere near saturating
> the demand for goods, services and leisure. As it happens, the rate of
> unemployment today is less than it was 100 years ago.
> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
> He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>
An improvement in production technology always increases
employment in the long-run.
To see this, we must recognize two effects: the substitution
effect and the output effect. Automation presumably will cause
capital to be substituted for labor. A firm would do this
willingly only if the substitution lowers the unit costs of
production. The lower production costs permit the output
price to fall and, other things equal, consumers will buy
more at the lower price.
Here we encounter the output effect. The higher quantity
demanded at the lower price increases firm output, and, indirectly,
the firm's demand for labor.
If the output effect is stronger than the substitution effect,
then employment in that industry will rise. The firm's production
function will determine how easily capital may be substituted for
labor, if at all.
The output effect may also reach into other industries. The industry
affected by the automation will experience a decline in price. This
leaves more income for consumers to purchase goods in other industries,
thereby increasing employment in other parts of the economy.
The worst case scenario, from a worker's point of view, is when
capital and labor are perfect substitutes. An improvement in
technology would then cause a directly proportional decline in
employment in the affected industry. In this case, it is likely
that the substitution effect will prevail and that employment in
the affected industry will decline in the short-run. However,
the lower prices will permit consumers to buy more goods from
other industries and increase employment elsewhere in the economy.
So, even in the worst case an improvement in technology increases
employment in the aggregate.
The idea that improvements in production technology is harmful
to employment is a myth.
**************************************************************************
* 1996 Florida State Seminoles Football Schedule *
* 8-0 ACC, 11-0 Overall; #1 AP, #1 CNN *
*------------------------------------------------------------------------*
* DUKE W,44-7 | CLEMSON W,34-3 | @ Ga. Tech W,49-3 *
* Open 9/14 | @ Miami W,34-16| vs Wake F. W,44-7 *
* @ NC State W,51-17 | Open 10/19 | SOUTHERN MISS. W,54-14 *
* NORTH CAROLINA W,13-0 | VIRGINIA W,31-24| vs Maryland W,48-10 *
* | | FLORIDA W,24-21 *
**************************************************************************
* SUAGR BOWL, Jan. 2: FSU vs. Florida *
**************************************************************************
1996 NCAA Team Rankings (111 I-A teams): (through 11/30)
Total Offense, Yards per Game: 31
Total Offense, Points per Game: 9
Total Defense, Yards per Game: 3
Total Defense, Points per Game: 4
Opponents' winning pct: .525
Opponents' opponents' win pct: .532
FSU Record vs. Ranked Teams: 4-0
Program Accomplishments:
39-1 against ACC competition
ACC Champions: 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995*, 1996
AP, CNN National Champions: 1993
ELEVEN consecutive bowl wins (NCAA record)
NINE consecutive AP Top 4 finishes (NCAA record)
TEN consecutive seasons with 10+ wins (NCAA record)
* co-champions with UVa
--
Edward Flaherty Web Site:
Department of Economics http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~eflahert
Florida State University
efla...@garnet.acns.fsu.edu
John McCarthy
The approximate stability of the level of unemployment over a hundred
years whether technology is advancing rapidly or slowly is evidence of
an economic and political feedback mechanism. No-one, even the
economists, understands it very well. One sees this by the wide
variation in predictions by economists when there is even a hint of a
recession.
David Lloyd-Jones
On 20 Dec 1996 17:19:53 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
wrote:
>The approximate stability of the level of unemployment over a hundred
>years whether technology is advancing rapidly or slowly is evidence of
>an economic and political feedback mechanism. No-one, even the
>economists, understands it very well. One sees this by the wide
>variation in predictions by economists when there is even a hint of a
>recession.
This is an attempt at an answer to a malformed question.
The question is malformed because it reifies "job" as a thing created
by politicians, economic conditions, employers, investment, or
whatever.
'Tain't so. A job is merely a unit of work. If you ask whether
people would do less work if they had better technologies to
accomplish their work with, the question appears foolish. That's
because it _is_ foollish.
-dlj.
Gary Forbis
John McCarthy wrote:
>
> The approximate stability of the level of unemployment over a hundred
> years whether technology is advancing rapidly or slowly is evidence of
> an economic and political feedback mechanism. No-one, even the
> economists, understands it very well. One sees this by the wide
> variation in predictions by economists when there is even a hint of a
> recession.
> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
> He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
I think this observation is right on. Surely employment is more a
political
issue than a technological one. Technology displaces workers from one
sector to another as Professor Flaherty has noted but I don't follow the
logic as to why this would ultimately increase employment.
It seems to me that if people generally want to work four hours a day
then
they will adjust their consumption to that which can be met by four
hours
a day production. I've been thinking long and hard about why we have
increased our "standard of living" over the span of my life time rather
than
reducing our effort to maintain the same "standard of living." I
suspect we
have taken to increasing our consumption because we feel a need to fill
our
day "productivly." I've spent most of this year trying to decide what I
want to do with my life rather than how I can make myself happy while
working
hard to maintain my unhappy "standard of living." I am finding I don't
need
to waste so much money buying software I never install or seldom use, I
don't
need to buy myself gifts for working real hard, I don't need a lot of
the
things I thought I needed when I worked hard to make the money to buy
these
things.
I wonder if our high unemployment is related to a model of economic
activity
that fears "wage inflation" and yet demands employees work on average
more
than forty hours per week so as to reduce fixed to variable costs ratios
associated with maintaining a work force.
--
--gary
for...@accessone.com
Michael L. Coburn
In article <32BB0E...@accessone.com>,
If you are in a position to decide that you will work 4 - 6 hrs.
per day instead of 8 - 12, then you are in a very unique position. Most
folks do not have that lattitude. If they refuse to work 8 - 12 hours per
day then they will lose their job/contract or whatever and be replaced by
someone willing to work the longer hours. Technology does not directly
produce unemployment but it does exaccerbate the current problems of
sharing the jobs that exist. This problem exists due to burdens on salary
per employee such as medical insurance.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
* Let me assure you that | Michael L. Coburn | mco...@halcyon.com |
* my employer agrees with| Softfolks Inc. | softfolk.wa.com |
* what I say. He's me. | UNIX,c,X/Motif,Oracle,DCE,CM,& SYS ADM |
John McCarthy
Michael Coburn includes
If you are in a position to decide that you will
work 4 - 6 hrs. per day instead of 8 - 12, then you are in
a very unique position. Most folks do not have that
lattitude. If they refuse to work 8 - 12 hours per day then
they will lose their job/contract or whatever and be
replaced by someone willing to work the longer hours.
Technology does not directly produce unemployment but it
does exaccerbate the current problems of sharing the jobs
that exist. This problem exists due to burdens on salary
per employee such as medical insurance.
Technology isn't responsible for the medical insurance requirements.
The law and union contracts are responsible for that.
I visited a Ford plant some years ago where they worked a 58 hour
week, ten hours on weekdays and 8 on Saturday. On the same site was a
Ford truck plant with two 8 hour shifts working 40 hours per week.
Workers spent an average of four years at the 58 hour week, because
they wanted to earn money fast, e.g. for a downpayment on a house.
You may not be able to get one employer to adjust the hours to your
satisfaction, but there are plenty of employers.
Almost any kind of sales job admits flexible hours, because of keeping
the store open more hours than anyone can work.
Gary Forbis
John McCarthy wrote:
> Technology isn't responsible for the medical insurance requirements.
> The law and union contracts are responsible for that.
President Clinton has pushed for changes in medical insurance. He has
pushed for laws that allow people to keep their health insurance even
when changing jobs (I have Gloucoma, until a law changed in this state,
my job change years ago cost me coverage) and is pushing for the ability
to continue coverage even while unemployed. Nontaxable benefits have
helped create this problem. I agree that technology isn't responsible
for this quagmire.
> I visited a Ford plant some years ago where they worked a 58 hour
> week, ten hours on weekdays and 8 on Saturday. On the same site was a
> Ford truck plant with two 8 hour shifts working 40 hours per week.
> Workers spent an average of four years at the 58 hour week, because
> they wanted to earn money fast, e.g. for a downpayment on a house.
I've been wondering how many hours go into the production of a house
and how many hours go into buying it. Here again technology isn't
responsible for homelessness, instead the politics of the allocation
of scarce resources and even needn't be so scarce and not so scarce
resources seems to be in the forefront.
I used to think I was pretty bright. I've found it nigh imposible to
keep up even a cursory knowledge in my field. The pace of technological
advance has pushed me towards specialization. I've resisted the presure
in the past but have chosen to switch life direction rather than to be
as Carrol's red queen, running as fast as I can to say in the same
place.
Specialization may seem like a good way to increase one's value but it
simultaneously places one in a dead end as cheaper interchangable
technology
come into being, as it always does.
> You may not be able to get one employer to adjust the hours to your
> satisfaction, but there are plenty of employers.
> Almost any kind of sales job admits flexible hours, because of keeping
> the store open more hours than anyone can work.
I've been wondering if storefronts represent dead technology. During
the
sixties my family could enter the local Sears store, choose what one
wanted,
pick up a phone to the catalog department, and pick up the murchandise
at
the back of the store about an hour later. While wharehouse rent is
substantially cheaper than storefront rent, catalog sales cut into
store-
front sales and storefront sales has a larger markup. Sears closed down
their catalog sales after years of hobbling it. Internet sales are
picking
up and this places pressures on storefronts that will make them less
profitable.
I don't know who will win the manufacturer direct to market/distribution
channel war but I doubt it will be the consumer sales staff.
--
--gary
for...@accessone.com
Robert Vienneau
> The approximate stability of the level of unemployment over a hundred
> years whether technology is advancing rapidly or slowly is evidence of
> an economic and political feedback mechanism. No-one, even the
> economists, understands it very well. One sees this by the wide
> variation in predictions by economists when there is even a hint of a
> recession.
Some economists have considered this problem:
"...it is an outstanding characteristic of the economic system in
which we live that, whilst it is subject to severe fluctuations in
respect of output and employment, it is not violently unstable. Indeed
it seems capable of remaining in a chronic condition of sub-normal
activity for a considerable period without any marked tendency either
towards recovery or towards complete collapse. Moreover, the evidence
indicates that full, or even approximately full, employment is of
rare and even short-lived occurrence. Fluctuations may start briskly
but seem to wear themselves out before they have proceeded to great
extremes, and an intermediate situation which is neither desperate nor
satisfactory is our normal lot. It is upon the fact that fluctuations
tend to wear themselves out before proceeding to extremes and eventually
to reverse themselves, that the theory of business *cycles* having a
regular phase has been founded. The same thing is true of prices, which,
in response to an initiating cause of disturbance, seem to be able to
find a level at which they can remain, for the ime being, moderately
stable"
- John Maynard Keynes, _The General Theory..._, pp. 249-250.
"[A Voltarian] Candide, turned economist,... might start by noticing
the presence in general, in a market economy, of the phenomenon of
labor unemployment, at times, a considerable amount of labor
unemployment a phenomenon that is prima facie of doubtful compatibility
with modern theory, since, as Candide will be quick to remark, wages show
nowhere the tendency to fall to zero.
As for the possible counter-observation that experience shows some
sort of long-run rough coincidence between labour employment and
labour seeking employment, Candide might of course retort that such
rough coincidence is only to be expected, to the extent that workers
cannot live on air. That rough coincidence may in fact result from
employment-seeking labour adjusting to employment opportunities rather
than the reverse, with the labour 'endowment' being a determined
rather than a determining magnitude of the system. Candide might
indeed easily indicate the massive migrations of workers from country
to country that have steadily accompanied the economic development of
market economies in the last two centuries. He might also, more subtly,
and even more importantly, point to the adaptation implicit in the
so-called 'dualism' of many economists, in which a sector using advanced
techniques coexists with sectors using the traditional methods, which
provide much lower incomes to the producers and release labour in step
with the needs of the advanced sector.
...the size of the capital endowment seems, if anything, even more
susceptible of adaptation to its employment than the size of the labour
force is. In fact, it might appear to Candide that, within the multiple
interaction likely to exist between outputs and capital stocks, the size
of the capital stocks may adjust to outputs at least as well as the outputs
are ever likely to adjust to the capital stocks..."
- Pierangelo Garegnani, "Sraffa: Classical versus Marginalist Analysis,"
in _Essays on Piero Sraffa_, Unwin Hyman, 1990.
Other places to look for an understanding of such feedback mechanisms are
in the works and followers of Kalecki, the writings and followers of
Schumpeter, the French regulationists, Institutionalists, Evolutionary
Economists, and, I suppose, the Standford-Sante Fe economists. I
particularly like Richard Goodwin, but then, I find non-linear
dynamics neat. I do not claim any expertise on any of these schools, but I
know enough to know they have many interesting things to say on the topic
of this thread.
Perhaps others would care to respond.
--
Robert Vienneau Try my Mac econ simulation game,
rv...@future.dreamscape.com Bukharin, at
ftp://csf.colorado.edu/econ/authors/Vienneau.Robert/Bukharin.sea
Whether strength of body or of mind, or wisdom, or virtue, are always
found...in proportion to the power or wealth of a man [is] a question
fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the hearing of their
masters, but highly unbecoming to reasonable and free men in search
of the truth. -- Rousseau
John McCarthy
It is peculiar that Sears found its catalog operation unprofitable and
closed it down at the same time that more and more companies were
selling by catalog and finding it profitable.
RHA
In article <59ahea$d...@news.fsu.edu>,
Edward Flaherty <efla...@garnet.acns.fsu.edu> wrote:
>j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) writes:
>> Jim Blair asks whether technological improvements necessarily reduce
>> employment. That would be true if the total production of goods and
>> services remained the same. However, we are nowhere near saturating
>> the demand for goods, services and leisure. As it happens, the rate of
>> unemployment today is less than it was 100 years ago.
>> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
>> He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>>
>
>employment in the long-run.
Only relevant to the past. Technology is now including
decision making capabilities. Granted, AI is not yet
ready to replace the average human, but give it a few
more years. After all, look at the latest release of
IBM's OS, Warp 4.0, which does voice recognition.
The average AI antagonist's argument is based on the
observation that AI hasn't succeeded for the last forty
years...funny that's only about how long we've been working
on it. I suspect we're about to succeed fairly soon.
Improvement use to be process related, better production
rates, better materials. Now improvement is control
related, replace human thinking with machine controls.
Nope, there's going to be sweeping changes soon.
--
rha
Robert Vienneau
Edward Flaherty writes:
> The idea that improvements in production technology is harmful
> to employment is a myth.
Just so nobody is misled, Edward Flaherty's view is just one economist's
view. His analysis is insufficient to support his views. Many
economists would challenge that view and even doubt the logical
coherence of his analytical tools. Especially doubtful, I think,
is the notion of a production function in which one of the inputs is
a factor labeled as "capital." He seems to be assuming Say's Law, that
is there is no involuntary unemployment in equilibrium. The validity of
this law was rejected by some economists in 1936, but a counter-revolution
since then has brought it back.
Suppose we construct a simple model of a two sector economy. The
first sector produces machinery with the aid of inputs of machinery
and labor. The second sector produces consumption goods from inputs
of machinery and labor. Technological improvement will cause some
coefficients of production to fall. That is
(1) Less machines might be required as input in the machine sector
to produce a given (net) quantity of machines.
(2) Less machines might be required as input in the consumption
sector to produce a given quantity of consumption goods
(3) Less labor might be required to produce a given quantity of
machines
(4) Less labor might be required to produce a given quantity of
consumption goods
Is technological improvement necessarily capital-using? It depends on
your classification scheme for technological change - for example,
contemporary economists talk about "Harrod neutral" and "Hick's
neutral" changes. But the short answer is "no."
Consider cases (3) and (4), and consider changes in ratio of machines to
labor required to produce any given level and composition of output. If
just (4) occured, it would seem that ratio must fall. But if (3) is
sufficiently large, the ratio might increase. So there's no telling.
A quiz question: What famous economist first used this two sector
model? Did he draw the correct conclusions about the necessary
effects of technological change?
Would the additional output that could be produced by the same size
labor force necessarily be demanded? It depends on how Keynesian
riddles of effective demand work out. I believe the answer is no,
but economists haven't generally worked out the answer, and most seem
uninterested. Solovian growth theory is one long run (inadequate)
approach that is often used to answer these questions, but Robert
Solow himself has noted in recent times that he did not pay enough
concern to this question in formulating his theory.
It's also helpful to remember that in advanced industrial economies,
tastes are not "given." Technical change leads to new products and
higher per capita income. Consumers are constantly going through a
learning process in consumption. The general culture has something
to do with the results, and that culture is heavily shaped by a
barrage of advertising.
Obviously, given the indeterminate nature of correct economic
analysis, empirical work would be helpful on this question, but theorists
need to provide the empiricalists with a useful framework in which
to tackle the question.
Some references that I think interesting:
Joan Robinson, _Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth_, Macmillan 1962.
- A classic. Provides taxonomies for classifying both technical
change and different growth regimes.
Stephen A. Marglin, _Growth, Distribution, and Prices_, Harvard, 1984.
- While not about technical change per se, this advanced textbook
does present three approaches within the question can be addressed.
The theory is clarified and empirical data is used to compare the
theories.
Luigi L. Pasinetti, _Structural Economic Dynamics: A Theory of the
Economic Consequences of Human Learning_, Cambridge, 1993.
- A typically brilliant and readable essay addressing just these
questions.
My game is also useful for examining the logic of a special case. See sig.
Robert Vienneau
In article <rvien-22129...@ua14.dreamscape.com>,
rv...@dreamscape.com (Robert Vienneau) wrote:
> Suppose we construct a simple model of a two sector economy. The
> first sector produces machinery with the aid of inputs of machinery
> and labor. The second sector produces consumption goods from inputs
> of machinery and labor. Technological improvement will cause some
> coefficients of production to fall. That is
>
> (1) Less machines might be required as input in the machine sector
> to produce a given (net) quantity of machines.
>
> (2) Less machines might be required as input in the consumption
> sector to produce a given quantity of consumption goods
>
> (3) Less labor might be required to produce a given quantity of
> machines
>
> (4) Less labor might be required to produce a given quantity of
> consumption goods
>
> Is technological improvement necessarily capital-using? It depends on
> your classification scheme for technological change - for example,
> contemporary economists talk about "Harrod neutral" and "Hick's
> neutral" changes. But the short answer is "no."
>
> Consider cases (3) and (4), and consider changes in ratio of machines to
> labor required to produce any given level and composition of output. If
> just (4) occured, it would seem that ratio must fall. But if (3) is
> sufficiently large, the ratio might increase. So there's no telling.
I'd like to amend the above. In this model machines can be thought of
as being produced by an infinite series of labor years extending into
the past. The labor cost of a machine is found by costing up this
series at the going rate of profit. This is Joan Robinson's measure
of "real capital." If (4) occurs, the ratio of real capital to
labor will rise. If (3) occurs, the the ratio of real capital to
labor will fall.
My conclusion is true. Depending on the type of technical change and
the sectors it occurs in, a reasonable measure of capital-intensity
can rise, fall, or remain unchanged. The criterion I should have
been using above is "Harrod neutrality." This is all set out in
Robinson's previously referenced book.
Obviously needing more sleep,
David W. Shaw
For a glimpse at how to create a 1% unemployment rate, look at my frre
on line book about economics.
David Shaw
--
___________________________________________
For a free online book about New Economics:
http://www.mindspring.com/~dwshaw/tdp.htm
David Lloyd-Jones
On 22 Dec 1996 08:21:39 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
wrote:
>It is peculiar that Sears found its catalog operation unprofitable and
>closed it down at the same time that more and more companies were
>selling by catalog and finding it profitable.
No more peculiar than the fact that Life, Colliers and Saturday
Evening Post all went out of business on the eve of the great boom in
magazines. It's simply a matter of the background technology having
shifted, and with it the most efficient division of niches has
changed.
Imagine changing the gears in your transmission, and seeing the peaks
on the dynamometer's curves shift.
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
On 22 Dec 1996 03:49:06 -0600, ri...@praline.no.neosoft.com (RHA)
wrote:
>>
>>An improvement in production technology always increases
>>employment in the long-run.
>
> Only relevant to the past. Technology is now including
> decision making capabilities.
All technological change in the past few thousand years has been based
on, and in turn has affected, decision making capabilities. The
animals who could identify useful seeds -- that's us, the information
processors -- beat out the ones that weren't so good at it.
Information processing being a Darwinian winner, the ones with the
bigger forebrains survived more.
> Granted, AI is not yet
> ready to replace the average human, but give it a few
> more years. After all, look at the latest release of
> IBM's OS, Warp 4.0, which does voice recognition.
Arthur C. Clark summed up this argument in the opening of 2001: the
bone used to smask open a skullful of delicious brain is the first
step to space stations.
As far as I can see voice recognition software simply makes it easier
for blind people to enter the workforce, thus lessening unemployment.
> The average AI antagonist's argument is based on the
> observation that AI hasn't succeeded for the last forty
> years...funny that's only about how long we've been working
> on it. I suspect we're about to succeed fairly soon.
Artificial intelligence has worked everywhere it's been applied ever
since the last ice-age. That bit about using marks on trees as an
artificial way of saying things was really a winner, Gog!
> Improvement use to be process related, better production
> rates, better materials. Now improvement is control
> related, replace human thinking with machine controls.
> Nope, there's going to be sweeping changes soon.
Will it be as boffo as the obsidian knife?
-dlj.
Roy Langston
> On 22 Dec 1996 03:49:06 -0600, ri...@praline.no.neosoft.com (RHA)
> wrote:
> > Granted, AI is not yet
> > ready to replace the average human, but give it a few
> > more years. After all, look at the latest release of
> > IBM's OS, Warp 4.0, which does voice recognition.
>
> Arthur C. Clark summed up this argument in the opening of 2001: the
> bone used to smask open a skullful of delicious brain is the first
> step to space stations.
>
> As far as I can see voice recognition software simply makes it easier
> for blind people to enter the workforce, thus lessening unemployment.
>
> > The average AI antagonist's argument is based on the
> > observation that AI hasn't succeeded for the last forty
> > years...funny that's only about how long we've been working
> > on it. I suspect we're about to succeed fairly soon.
Trouble is, the more experience people get with actually _doing_ AI, the
more daunting it looks. In 1960, many researchers predicted AI would be
world chess champion by 1970. Now 2000 looks more like it, and AI is
still at the novice stage in a deeper, more complex game like go.
David has a point, but so does RHA. The fact is, AI is different in kind
from previous advances, because it _substitutes_ for _the_ fundamental
production factor: human decision making.
There have always been a certain number of people who were unemployable:
in a Stone Age society, they simply starved, while in more productive
economies, they can be supported.
As technology improves, the number of such people generally increases: a
profoundly mentally handicapped but able-bodied individual could be
profitably employed pulling a plow until the invention of the horse collar
in the Middle Ages made human muscle power obsolete for such purposes. At
that point, those people became unemployable. AI renders an increasingly
larger fraction of the population unemployable in the same way: if you are
not capable of producing _some_ good or service better and/or cheaper than
a machine, you are unemployable.
However, AI is not yet at a stage where it is making large numbers of
people unemployable, and probably will not be in the near future. IMO,
99% of today's unemployables were also unemployable 50 years ago. But
most of the _physically_ disabled people who would have been unemployable
50 years ago are now employable, thanks to technological advances.
Technology will make an increasingly large fraction of the physically
disabled employable, but we are already asymptotically approaching 100%
employability for the mentally able but physically disabled, who comprise
quite a small proportion of the entire population. The fact remains that
lack of cognitive ability is going to be an increasingly serious barrier
to employability, and for an ever-increasing fraction of the population
(barring education reform, and beyond that, pharmacological and/or genetic
fixes for lack of cognitive ability).
-- Roy Langston
John McCarthy
In article <59j06i$e...@praline.no.neosoft.com> ri...@praline.no.neosoft.com (RHA) writes:
>
> In article <59ahea$d...@news.fsu.edu>,
> Edward Flaherty <efla...@garnet.acns.fsu.edu> wrote:
> >j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) writes:
> >> Jim Blair asks whether technological improvements necessarily reduce
> >> employment. That would be true if the total production of goods and
> >> services remained the same. However, we are nowhere near saturating
> >> the demand for goods, services and leisure. As it happens, the rate of
> >> unemployment today is less than it was 100 years ago.
> >employment in the long-run.
>
> Only relevant to the past. Technology is now including
> ready to replace the average human, but give it a few
> more years. After all, look at the latest release of
> IBM's OS, Warp 4.0, which does voice recognition.
> observation that AI hasn't succeeded for the last forty
> years...funny that's only about how long we've been working
> on it. I suspect we're about to succeed fairly soon.
>
> rates, better materials. Now improvement is control
> related, replace human thinking with machine controls.
> Nope, there's going to be sweeping changes soon.
> rha
I have been working on AI for 48 years now. I and others have made
progress, but I don't see a breakthrough that will revolutionize
employment in the next ten years. (My not seeing it doesn't prove it
won't happen, but it would require a lot more than speech
recognition).
Besides the historical argument that improved technology hasn't
increased unemployment in the medium run (5 years), there is the
argument from unsaturated wants. Who among us could not find a use
for another $20,000 per year, and which advocate of a worthy cause
could not find a way to usefully spend $20 billion a year on it?
We have spent a large part of our increased productivity on leisure,
more years of education and more years of retirement and longer
vacations and shorter hours. We are also spending our increased
wealth on improved medical care.
John McCarthy
Some of you will surely see the Keynes quote again. I have put it in
my quotes file to be trotted out the next time someone is overly sure
of his economic projections.
Spam aviodance
On 19 Dec 1996 04:48:10 GMT, efla...@garnet.acns.fsu.edu (Edward Flaherty)
wrote:
>An improvement in production technology always increases
>employment in the long-run.
>
>The idea that improvements in production technology is harmful
>to employment is a myth.
This is valid for an industrial society. I don't think it's going to continue
to be though, for where we're going now. Guess it depends on your definition of
long run.
I can understand why you'd want to be positive but that doesn't make
it so. Maybe I just can't imagine what the new high employment service jobs
_are_ that will be created in the new economy. Faith Popcorn says we'll be
walking each others dogs. (not her words, but that's how I interpret her
"Clicking" effort)
As a possible note of relevant interest I've been wondering why, with US full
employment, there hasn't been any real move up in wage inflation ? Could it be
that the nature of the jobs creating full employment now, differ from those in
the past. The usual pressure of not having enough people supplying the economy
has been mitigated by the use of part time labour ? Has the nature of full
employment changed ?
Doug.
Spam aviodance
On 20 Dec 1996 19:33:41 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>On 20 Dec 1996 17:19:53 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
>wrote:
>
>>The approximate stability of the level of unemployment over a hundred
>>years whether technology is advancing rapidly or slowly is evidence of
>>an economic and political feedback mechanism. No-one, even the
>>economists, understands it very well. One sees this by the wide
>>variation in predictions by economists when there is even a hint of a
>>recession.
>
>This is an attempt at an answer to a malformed question.
>
>The question is malformed because it reifies "job" as a thing created
>by politicians, economic conditions, employers, investment, or
>whatever.
>
>'Tain't so. A job is merely a unit of work. If you ask whether
>people would do less work if they had better technologies to
>accomplish their work with, the question appears foolish. That's
>because it _is_ foollish.
Fine. Is technological change going to create more or fewer _paid_
units of work (to get pedantic, for people), oh majik socialist ?
Michael L. Coburn
In article <JMC.96De...@Steam.stanford.edu>,
John McCarthy <j...@cs.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>In article <59j06i$e...@praline.no.neosoft.com> ri...@praline.no.neosoft.com (RHA) writes:
> >
> > In article <59ahea$d...@news.fsu.edu>,
> > Edward Flaherty <efla...@garnet.acns.fsu.edu> wrote:
> > >j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) writes:
> > >> Jim Blair asks whether technological improvements necessarily reduce
> > >> employment. That would be true if the total production of goods and
> > >> services remained the same. However, we are nowhere near saturating
> > >> the demand for goods, services and leisure. As it happens, the rate of
> > >> unemployment today is less than it was 100 years ago.
> > >employment in the long-run.
> >
> > decision making capabilities. Granted, AI is not yet
> > ready to replace the average human, but give it a few
> > more years. After all, look at the latest release of
> > IBM's OS, Warp 4.0, which does voice recognition.
> > The average AI antagonist's argument is based on the
> > observation that AI hasn't succeeded for the last forty
> > years...funny that's only about how long we've been working
> > on it. I suspect we're about to succeed fairly soon.
> >
> > Improvement use to be process related, better production
> > rates, better materials. Now improvement is control
> > related, replace human thinking with machine controls.
> > Nope, there's going to be sweeping changes soon.
> > --
> > rha
>
>I have been working on AI for 48 years now. I and others have made
>progress, but I don't see a breakthrough that will revolutionize
>employment in the next ten years. (My not seeing it doesn't prove it
>won't happen, but it would require a lot more than speech
>recognition).
>
It occurs to some that it might be much easier to solve this
problem biologically. Perhaps it would be easier to genetically engineer
some non-human species into a state of low level intelligence suitable to
the undertaking of many repatative, menial tasks. Such a development
would seem a reasonable replacement for the 'robots' of science fiction.
Unfortunately, we run into problems with religion, and ethics. The real
saving grace of compumetrics is that we don't have people in the streets
screaming about 'computer rights'.
>Besides the historical argument that improved technology hasn't
>increased unemployment in the medium run (5 years), there is the
>argument from unsaturated wants. Who among us could not find a use
>for another $20,000 per year, and which advocate of a worthy cause
>could not find a way to usefully spend $20 billion a year on it?
>
I will tell you now that if it were not for my wife, and her fear
of being unable to buy as much quilting fabric as she can store in boxes I
wouildildn't care about it :). Realistically, I do care about access to my
computer, tennis balls, and a good backpack. I also have fears of being
destitute in my old age.
>We have spent a large part of our increased productivity on leisure,
>more years of education and more years of retirement and longer
>vacations and shorter hours. We are also spending our increased
>wealth on improved medical care.
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>
Unfortunately, we are spending far too much on medical care
and, due to our neurosis concerning old age, investing far too much in
establishing a lien on future production.
Mason A. Clark
On 22 Dec 1996 18:44:35 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (
John McCarthy) wrote, in reference to the Keynes quotation
provided by Robert Vienneau:
> Some of you will surely see the Keynes quote again. I have put it in
> my quotes file to be trotted out the next time someone is overly sure
> of his economic projections.
Here is the quotation, and read Keynes' conclusion which follows.
"...it is an outstanding characteristic of the economic system in
which we live that, whilst it is subject to severe fluctuations in
respect of output and employment, it is not violently unstable. Indeed
it seems capable of remaining in a chronic condition of sub-normal
activity for a considerable period without any marked tendency either
towards recovery or towards complete collapse. Moreover, the evidence
indicates that full, or even approximately full, employment is of
rare and even short-lived occurrence. Fluctuations may start briskly
but seem to wear themselves out before they have proceeded to great
extremes, and an intermediate situation which is neither desperate nor
satisfactory is our normal lot. It is upon the fact that fluctuations
tend to wear themselves out before proceeding to extremes and eventually
to reverse themselves, that the theory of business *cycles* having a
regular phase has been founded. The same thing is true of prices, which,
in response to an initiating cause of disturbance, seem to be able to
find a level at which they can remain, for the ime being, moderately
stable"
- John Maynard Keynes, _The General Theory..._, pp. 249-250.
Keynes concluding paragraph in this chapter is:
"But we must not conclude that the mean postion thus
determined by 'natural' tendencies, namely, by those
tendencies whic are likelly to persist, failing measures
expressly designed to correct them, is, therefore, estab-
lished by laws of necessity. The unimpeded rule of
the above conditions is a fact of observation concerning
the world as it is or has been, and NOT a necessary prin-
ciple which cannot be changed."
- John Maynard Keynes, _The General Theory..._, p. 254
(The page number is in my copy, the Vienneau quote there
being on pp. 249-250. The emphasis is added by me.)
Keynes leaves us with hope. His project, remember, was
recovery from the Great Depression, a recovery which was
accomplished by the war keynesianism of 1939 to 1945, and
continued by the cold-was keynesianism of 1950 to date.
-----------------------------------------------
Mason A Clark mas...@ix.netcom.com
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210
http://www.netcom.com/~masonc (slow,wait)
Vickery on the "Deficit" and notes on Vickrey
http://www.netcom.com/~masonc/vickrey.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210/vickrey.html
The Boskin report on the CPI, itself and links:
http://www.naz.com/personal/masonc/boskin.html
---------------------------------------------------
Roy Langston
> Edward Flaherty writes:
>
> > The idea that improvements in production technology is harmful
> > to employment is a myth.
>
> Suppose we construct a simple model of a two sector economy. The
> first sector produces machinery with the aid of inputs of machinery
> and labor. The second sector produces consumption goods from inputs
> of machinery and labor. Technological improvement will cause some
> coefficients of production to fall. That is
>
> (1) Less machines might be required as input in the machine sector
> to produce a given (net) quantity of machines.
>
> (2) Less machines might be required as input in the consumption
> sector to produce a given quantity of consumption goods
>
> (3) Less labor might be required to produce a given quantity of
> machines
>
> (4) Less labor might be required to produce a given quantity of
> consumption goods
You forgot what actually happens: the (missing) marketing and distribution
sector increases.
> Consider cases (3) and (4), and consider changes in ratio of machines to
> labor required to produce any given level and composition of output. If
> just (4) occured, it would seem that ratio must fall. But if (3) is
> sufficiently large, the ratio might increase. So there's no telling.
>
> A quiz question: What famous economist first used this two sector
> model? Did he draw the correct conclusions about the necessary
> effects of technological change?
IOW, did he focus mainly on the increase in production?
> Would the additional output that could be produced by the same size
> labor force necessarily be demanded? It depends on how Keynesian
> riddles of effective demand work out. I believe the answer is no,
In defiance of the obvious facts of the economic history of the last
10,000 years...
-- Roy Langston
John McCarthy
Doug includes:
I can understand why you'd want to be positive but that
doesn't make it so. Maybe I just can't imagine what the new
high employment service jobs _are_ that will be created in
the new economy. Faith Popcorn says we'll be walking each
others dogs. (not her words, but that's how I interpret her
"Clicking" effort)
May I assume then that if Doug received $10,000 more per year that he
would spend it on having his dog walked?
David Lloyd-Jones
On Sun, 22 Dec 1996 19:35:43 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Spam aviodance)
asked:
Why would change in physical or communications technology have any
effect on money supply? There being no connection, it's going to
create neither; either may occur.
-dlj.
Andy Yeung
I think it is not.
Look at computer industry which has experienced great technological
improvement in the last few decades. Technological improvement has
allowed computer companies to produce better and more computers in less
cost. However, we do not see reduction in employment in the computer
industry (I believe there are more people working in computer industry
nowadays than 10 years ago). So, technological improvement is not by
definition a job killer. It is common sense that as long as a business
is profitable, it will keep employing people. Industries may be
replaced by technological advances; however, new industry can also be
created by technology (i.e car production replace horse carriage
production...) I think technological advancement is good for everyone
(it is truly a rising tide that lifts all boats). I believe that
technology is the main force in improving productivity of labor, thus
increases economic output and improves people lives.
Regarding unemployement, there are more important factors to it than
technology, i.e. monetary system, government policy, trading
environment, economic resources, etc.... I think these are more
important causes of umemployment than anything else. Look at country
that have higer unemployment rate than the US., not too many of them are
more technologically advance than the US, right? But, if you look at
their political and economic system, you may find an answer to why their
unemployment rate is higher....
-Andy
================================================================
Spam aviodance wrote:
>
> On 19 Dec 1996 04:48:10 GMT, efla...@garnet.acns.fsu.edu (Edward Flaherty)
> wrote:
>
> >An improvement in production technology always increases
> >employment in the long-run.
> >
> >The idea that improvements in production technology is harmful
> >to employment is a myth.
>
> This is valid for an industrial society. I don't think it's going to continue
> to be though, for where we're going now. Guess it depends on your definition of
> long run.
>
> I can understand why you'd want to be positive but that doesn't make
> it so. Maybe I just can't imagine what the new high employment service jobs
> _are_ that will be created in the new economy. Faith Popcorn says we'll be
> walking each others dogs. (not her words, but that's how I interpret her
> "Clicking" effort)
>
Roy Langston
In article <32BF46...@FairIsaac.com>, Andy Yeung
<KaWai...@FairIsaac.com> wrote:
> Regarding unemployement, there are more important factors to it than
> technology, i.e. monetary system, government policy, trading
> environment, economic resources, etc.... I think these are more
> important causes of umemployment than anything else. Look at country
> that have higer unemployment rate than the US., not too many of them are
> more technologically advance than the US, right? But, if you look at
> their political and economic system, you may find an answer to why their
> unemployment rate is higher....
Good points. There are really very few factors you have to look at to
find the explanations for unemployment, and technology is not one of them:
1. Costs and benefits to the worker of working vs. not working.
2. Costs and benefits to the employer of hiring somebody vs. not hiring
somebody.
This is what governments have been doing to alter the outcomes of these
cost-benefit calculations:
For the worker:
working not working
------------------------------------
costs + - -
------------------------------------
benefits - - - - + + + +
------------------------------------
For the employer:
hiring not hiring
------------------------------------
costs + + + + -
------------------------------------
benefits - - +
This should make the situation a little clearer.
-- Roy Langston
Michael L. Coburn
In article <32c08d6c.8678631@news>, Spam aviodance <me...@direct.ca> wrote:
>On 20 Dec 1996 19:33:41 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>The approximate stability of the level of unemployment over a hundred
>>>years whether technology is advancing rapidly or slowly is evidence of
>>>an economic and political feedback mechanism. No-one, even the
>>>economists, understands it very well. One sees this by the wide
>>>variation in predictions by economists when there is even a hint of a
>>>recession.
>>
>>This is an attempt at an answer to a malformed question.
>>
>>The question is malformed because it reifies "job" as a thing created
>>by politicians, economic conditions, employers, investment, or
>>whatever.
>>
>>people would do less work if they had better technologies to
>>accomplish their work with, the question appears foolish. That's
>>because it _is_ foollish.
>
>Fine. Is technological change going to create more or fewer _paid_
>units of work (to get pedantic, for people), oh majik socialist ?
>
The population of the Earth remained somewhat constant until
agricultural technology occurred, it then spurted and leveled off again
until the industrial revolution. Conclusion: technological advance is of
no real benefit because women and religious idiots will just insist on
having more babies. Stated a differnt way: humans are like vermin, and
the more corn there is, the more vermin there are. Jobs are not
deminished by technology because there are always more mouths to feed.
Doug Bolton
On 22 Dec 1996 23:15:53 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
>Doug includes:
>
>
> I can understand why you'd want to be positive but that
> doesn't make it so. Maybe I just can't imagine what the new
> high employment service jobs _are_ that will be created in
> the new economy. Faith Popcorn says we'll be walking each
> others dogs. (not her words, but that's how I interpret her
> "Clicking" effort)
>
>May I assume then that if Doug received $10,000 more per year that he
>would spend it on having his dog walked?
Not if I were a dog walker.
I'm generalizing your statement 'cause that's the only way I can make it
meaningful to the point of discussion.
You seem to be assuming that most people will have an increased income because
that's been the trend. Maybe its just pre millennial angst, but I'm hearing a
lot of concern about downsizing, rationalization and wage stagnation.
I doubt if society would value my service as a dog walker enough that I'd
receive 10k more to do that. If I was receiving a marginal income from a
similar service job that was just enough for sustenance, I'd be quite prudent as
to how I spent the money I received. Consumerism is based on discretionary
income. I'd have less of that and so would spend less. This seems to be the
current effect (or at least the current fear) of incomes being displaced by
tech. (and yes, other factors such as globalization)
Certainly some will adapt very well to the new opportunities. Others will be
forced to adapt as best they can. I don't think the bulk of the boomers will
adapt very well, however, as we're use to salaried positions. The government
retraining programs are mainly just an attempt to show that they're doing
_something_.
As technology continues to make inroads, for competitive reasons, the job
market can only have fewer jobs in the traditionally high employment, high wage
industrial and manufacturing sectors. These are the sectors that created the
middle class. That has shifted to some extent to white collar employment. The
paper pushers appear to be the most in danger, now, of being rationalized
because tech can do it more cost effectively (and often better). What's going to
replace this type of employment ? Something may well come along. At present I
don't know what it will be. An economy based on marketing middlemen/women,
computer consultants, internet researchers, dog walkers ? Tech is changing so
fast that what looks viable now will be obsolete in 5/10 years. Many are having
trouble adapting to what's already changed. They'll really enjoy having to deal
with weekly or even daily changes effecting their likelihood of being employed.
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On 23 Dec 1996 06:47:55 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>On Sun, 22 Dec 1996 19:35:43 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Spam aviodance)
>asked:
>
>>On 20 Dec 1996 19:33:41 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>>
>>>'Tain't so. A job is merely a unit of work. If you ask whether
>>>people would do less work if they had better technologies to
>>>accomplish their work with, the question appears foolish. That's
>>>because it _is_ foollish.
>>
>>Fine. Is technological change going to create more or fewer _paid_
>>units of work (to get pedantic, for people), oh majik socialist ?
>
>
>Why would change in physical or communications technology have any
>effect on money supply? There being no connection, it's going to
>create neither; either may occur.
I think the point of the original post was that the technologies aren't just
allowing people to work less because it allows them to do it better, it's so
good that it's displacing them. I don't know how this will effect money supply
(other than that unemployed people tend to have less of it). I suppose an
unemployment rate of +10% would eventually make itself felt.
This is something I find curious. The US has, effectively, full employment and
yet we're seeing very little wage inflation. Why is this ? Could it be related
to the subject line ?
Doug.
John McCarthy
As technology improves, the amount of available goods and services
increases. Over the medium haul, under any economic system, but perhaps
more quickly under democratic capitalism, the increased wealth is
distributed to all classes. What people will be employed to produce
depends on what people want, whether these people are doing
manufacturing in China or computer programmers or dog walkers in the
U.S.
Hence the question: What would Doug spend $10,000 more per year on?
Incidentally, the extreme discrepancy between Chinese and American
wages won't last. The Chinese economy will develop and will not be
inclined to pay 10 hours of work for 1 hour of American work, once
they can do this work efficiently themselves. This happened with
Taiwan to a substantial degree, but it may take longer with China
because of its immense population.
John McCarthy
the candy, the box contained a dozen slips of paper, each listing the
number of grams of fat and the calories in each kind of candy. That
box of candy cost more because of the work that went into testing each
kind of candy and making sure that the right slips got into each box.
My taxes are larger to pay for the officials that make sure that See's
Candies did it right and for the lawyers who will fine them if they
got the number of grams of fat wrong.
We would be more prosperous if some of the FDA's responsibilities were
"gutted", to use a word cooked up for those stone-walling against
regulatory reform.
David Lloyd-Jones
On Wed, 25 Dec 1996 20:16:54 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>This is something I find curious. The US has, effectively, full employment and
>yet we're seeing very little wage inflation. Why is this ? Could it be related
>to the subject line ?
Doug,
The increased product is split among the people in accordance with
their bargaining power. The 1% who own 40% of all the financial
assets, and the 20% who own any financial assets at all, have
substantially more of this than the bottom 80% do, so they are doing
very nicely.
Three of four percent of everybody are losing their jobs each year,
with maybe half of them taking pay cuts in the 10~20% range when they
find new work. Three or four percent being riffed is enough to keep
the rest in line.
-dlj.
Mason A. Clark
On Wed, 25 Dec 1996 20:16:54 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>
> This is something I find curious. The US has, effectively, full employment and
> yet we're seeing very little wage inflation. Why is this ? Could it be related
> to the subject line ?
>
Sorry, I'm from the planet Earth. I must have got in here through some
space warp. What planet is this?
Max Jacobs
Doug Bolton wrote:
>
> I think the point of the original post was that the technologies aren't just
> allowing people to work less because it allows them to do it better, it's so
> good that it's displacing them. I don't know how this will effect money supply
> (other than that unemployed people tend to have less of it). I suppose an
> unemployment rate of +10% would eventually make itself felt.
>
And what about all those poor blacksmiths who lost their jobs because of
industrialization? W. Michael Cox of the Dallas Federal Reserve said in
the May 6, 1996 Forbes, "As recently as 75 years ago, the U.S. had 10
million registered passenger cars and 20.5 million horses. Had our
ancestors been able to freeze jobs, the US would be stuck in the horse
and buggy era." Or let me put it another way, in 1900 there were 10.1
million farm laborers, in 1995 there were 2.3 million farm laborers.
That means that 7.8 million jobs were lost in just one industry. But
has that caused massive unemployment and hardship? No. Twenty-two of
the top 30 jobs (in terms of number of people who have those jobs) were
not in the top 30 in 1900 with some of them not even existing yet. For
example, there are 1 million computer programmers today, and there were
none in 1900. Even if you compare today to 1965, 18 of the top 30 jobs
werent in the top thirty in 1965.
Think about it, just 3 or 4 years ago nobody had ever heard of a
webmaster, now they are everywhere. Funny I dont think they are afraid
of machines taking their jobs.
Max Jacobs
************************************************************************
The Bionomics Institute
http://www.bionomics.org
Viewing the economy as an ecosystem
************************************************************************
Doug Bolton
On 24 Dec 1996 18:12:08 GMT, mco...@coho.halcyon.com (Michael L. Coburn) wrote:
>In article <32c08d6c.8678631@news>, Spam aviodance <me...@direct.ca> wrote:
>>On 20 Dec 1996 19:33:41 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>>
>>>On 20 Dec 1996 17:19:53 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>The approximate stability of the level of unemployment over a hundred
>>>>years whether technology is advancing rapidly or slowly is evidence of
>>>>an economic and political feedback mechanism. No-one, even the
>>>>economists, understands it very well. One sees this by the wide
>>>>variation in predictions by economists when there is even a hint of a
>>>>recession.
>>>
>>>This is an attempt at an answer to a malformed question.
>>>
>>>The question is malformed because it reifies "job" as a thing created
>>>by politicians, economic conditions, employers, investment, or
>>>whatever.
>>>
>>>'Tain't so. A job is merely a unit of work. If you ask whether
>>>people would do less work if they had better technologies to
>>>accomplish their work with, the question appears foolish. That's
>>>because it _is_ foollish.
>>
>>Fine. Is technological change going to create more or fewer _paid_
>>units of work (to get pedantic, for people), oh majik socialist ?
>>
>
> The population of the Earth remained somewhat constant until
>agricultural technology occurred, it then spurted and leveled off again
>until the industrial revolution. Conclusion: technological advance is of
>no real benefit because women and religious idiots will just insist on
>having more babies. Stated a differnt way: humans are like vermin, and
>the more corn there is, the more vermin there are. Jobs are not
>deminished by technology because there are always more mouths to feed.
It's my belief that any species, given no natural controls, will expand it's
population to use all available resources. That's what we're doing.
I don't believe, however, that I'd pay someone to do a job that I could automate
just because they have mouths to feed. It seems many people who use tech a lot
are to close to it to see the problem. They understand, use and like tech so
it's good, because it's good there are no problems with it, only benefits. By
the way I obviously use it and I don't object to it. I quite like it. I do think
, though, I can also see negative social consequences coming. Doesn't mean I'd
stop it (even if I could). Chaos does make life interesting, hopefully from a
reasonable distance.
Doug.
David Lloyd-Jones
On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 18:53:10 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>It's my belief that any species, given no natural controls, will expand it's
>population to use all available resources. That's what we're doing.
That gets it pretty much all wrong in a nutshell. Resources are
things we create, not things we use up.
-dlj.
Paul Jenkins
Doug Bolton <me...@direct.ca> wrote in article <32c98b88.10524090@news>...
Economic theory postulates that labour demand is based on the marginal
productivity of labour. Any technological development that raises
productivity will tend to increase real wages. Therefore to the extent
that technological change raises productivity, it will translate into some
combination of higher real wages and employment.
The real question in my view is why the "information revolution" has not
translated into rapid productivity growth. Indeed, productivity has been
stagnant in most industrial countries since the early 1970s, after rising
rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. Understanding this puzzle is much more
important than trying to guess who will be winners and losers when/if new
technology begins to increase productivity. History suggests that the
benefits of new technology are diffused much more widely than one would
have expected.
Roy Langston
In article <01bbf46d$93034be0$7211f8ce@pjenkins>, "Paul Jenkins"
<pjen...@igs.net> wrote:
> The real question in my view is why the "information revolution" has not
> translated into rapid productivity growth. Indeed, productivity has been
> stagnant in most industrial countries since the early 1970s, after rising
> rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s.
Easy: much larger numbers of people are now being paid not to produce.
-- Roy Langston
Doug Bolton
On 25 Dec 1996 23:16:36 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
> > On 23 Dec 1996 06:47:55 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> >
> > >On Sun, 22 Dec 1996 19:35:43 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Spam aviodance)
> > >asked:
> > >
> > >>On 20 Dec 1996 19:33:41 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>'Tain't so. A job is merely a unit of work. If you ask whether
> > >>>people would do less work if they had better technologies to
> > >>>accomplish their work with, the question appears foolish. That's
> > >>>because it _is_ foollish.
> > >>
> > >>Fine. Is technological change going to create more or fewer _paid_
> > >>units of work (to get pedantic, for people), oh majik socialist ?
> > >
> > >
> > >Why would change in physical or communications technology have any
> > >effect on money supply? There being no connection, it's going to
> > >create neither; either may occur.
> >
> > I think the point of the original post was that the technologies aren't just
> > allowing people to work less because it allows them to do it better, it's so
> > good that it's displacing them. I don't know how this will effect money supply
> > (other than that unemployed people tend to have less of it). I suppose an
> > unemployment rate of +10% would eventually make itself felt.
> >
> > This is something I find curious. The US has, effectively, full employment and
> > yet we're seeing very little wage inflation. Why is this ? Could it be related
> > to the subject line ?
> >
> > Doug.
>
>Today I got a box of assorted candy as a Christmas present. Besides
>the candy, the box contained a dozen slips of paper, each listing the
>number of grams of fat and the calories in each kind of candy. That
>box of candy cost more because of the work that went into testing each
>kind of candy and making sure that the right slips got into each box.
>My taxes are larger to pay for the officials that make sure that See's
>Candies did it right and for the lawyers who will fine them if they
>got the number of grams of fat wrong.
>
>We would be more prosperous if some of the FDA's responsibilities were
>"gutted", to use a word cooked up for those stone-walling against
>regulatory reform.
Isn't deregulation one of the directions that (post?) industrialized countries
are being forced to move to in order to compete with less regulated countries ?
Government institutions have a vested interest in maintaining and increasing
influence in their particular sphere. They've managed to make the population
(at least here in Canada) quite reliant on them for direct solutions to problems
that they've very little influence over. So the government has, at our expense,
pretended to do something to quiet the noise, 'till the problem reappears.
Again, thanks to foreign competition, and also creditors, our governments are
being forced to start cutting spending, and therefore program (and
administration) costs, to better compete. Looks like the capitalist system does
work, if slowly and with some pain.
The pain comes in the form of unemployment of government workers and people in
uncompetitive businesses. I think we're only at the beginning of this process,
hence my dog walker example.
I don't know what degree of pain the switch from industrial to communication
(knowledge or whatever) economy will entail, but I don't think we can manage
what we don't understand, and it's moving to fast and unpredictably for (most
of) us to understand it, or its ramifications. Certainly is a good market for
futurists, though.
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On 26 Dec 1996 01:38:53 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>On Wed, 25 Dec 1996 20:16:54 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>
>>This is something I find curious. The US has, effectively, full employment and
>>yet we're seeing very little wage inflation. Why is this ? Could it be related
>>to the subject line ?
>
>Doug,
>
>The increased product is split among the people in accordance with
>their bargaining power. The 1% who own 40% of all the financial
>assets, and the 20% who own any financial assets at all, have
>substantially more of this than the bottom 80% do, so they are doing
>very nicely.
>
>Three of four percent of everybody are losing their jobs each year,
>with maybe half of them taking pay cuts in the 10~20% range when they
>find new work. Three or four percent being riffed is enough to keep
>the rest in line.
This is along the lines of what I think is happening.
Tech is requiring fewer people for less time in order to do many jobs. This
means we're moving to what's called "flexible work hours" as in part time work.
This type of work has traditionally meant lower pay and fewer benefits. So the
nature of full employment has changed. There is an over abundance of people
competing for the well paying full time jobs which are the ones that companies
are trying to eliminate. This means workers who have that type of job are
feeling the pressure of those wanting their jobs and so are restrained in their
demand for higher wages. Also, of course, government wage taxes and foreign
competition are significant factors.
Globalization is a wonderful opportunity for the 20% you refer to, as they can
prosper from it. Same with tech, which is speeding up globalization.
It's recently occurred to me that we've been saying we want to help the "Third
world" countries all my life. We hadn't expected that to happen through an
equalization of standard of living (and wealth creation) from us to them,
however. I don't know that this is necessarily a "bad thing". Moving from
closed to openly competitive markets will require some adjustment, especially of
expectations for the general populace. Seems that's why so many are glum now.
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 06:06:38 GMT, mas...@ix.netcom.com (Mason A. Clark) wrote:
>On Wed, 25 Dec 1996 20:16:54 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>>
>> This is something I find curious. The US has, effectively, full employment and
>> yet we're seeing very little wage inflation. Why is this ? Could it be related
>> to the subject line ?
>>
>> Doug.
>
>Sorry, I'm from the planet Earth. I must have got in here through some
>space warp. What planet is this?
I understand that in the nation state of the United States of America, planet
Earth, year of someone's lord 1996, full employment is cited as 5.2-5.5%
unemployment. This allows for workers in transition from one job to another,
and of course, only considers people who are actively looking for work (want to
work).
Or are you an employer who has recently given your employees a 10% raise ?
Doug, still residing on planet Earth.
Doug Bolton
On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 09:38:48 -0800, Max Jacobs <mja...@bionomics.org> wrote:
>Doug Bolton wrote:
>
>>
>> I think the point of the original post was that the technologies aren't just
>> allowing people to work less because it allows them to do it better, it's so
>> good that it's displacing them. I don't know how this will effect money supply
>> (other than that unemployed people tend to have less of it). I suppose an
>> unemployment rate of +10% would eventually make itself felt.
>>
>And what about all those poor blacksmiths who lost their jobs because of
>industrialization? W. Michael Cox of the Dallas Federal Reserve said in
>the May 6, 1996 Forbes, "As recently as 75 years ago, the U.S. had 10
>million registered passenger cars and 20.5 million horses. Had our
>ancestors been able to freeze jobs, the US would be stuck in the horse
>and buggy era." Or let me put it another way, in 1900 there were 10.1
>million farm laborers, in 1995 there were 2.3 million farm laborers.
>That means that 7.8 million jobs were lost in just one industry. But
>has that caused massive unemployment and hardship? No. Twenty-two of
>the top 30 jobs (in terms of number of people who have those jobs) were
>not in the top 30 in 1900 with some of them not even existing yet. For
>example, there are 1 million computer programmers today, and there were
>none in 1900. Even if you compare today to 1965, 18 of the top 30 jobs
>werent in the top thirty in 1965.
>
>Think about it, just 3 or 4 years ago nobody had ever heard of a
>webmaster, now they are everywhere. Funny I dont think they are afraid
>of machines taking their jobs.
I'm certainly not trying to promote a job freeze. Many of the programming jobs
you refer to are located in India. It requires little capital expense and even
with the significantly lower pay rates is a very attractive job by Indian
standards. USA programmers are now competing directly with the rest of the
world for those jobs. This is good for the software user as it lowers cost.
Sure there are lots of webmiesters and I don't pretend to know what sort of jobs
the future holds, but ... seems to me that tech will require far fewer jobs
than industrialization did (that's a good part of the point in doing it, after
all).
For those in the fields that are prospering now and are adept enough to adapt
quickly enough (not too specialized), the future looks very bright. For those
with enough capital the future always looks bright anyway. For the rest ?
How many McJobs can we create to employ them ? Do we really need all those
poodle walkers ? Who's going to employ them, the house cleaners ?
I think you optimism runneth over.
Doug.
Kevin Morgan
Once upon a time, Doug Bolton (me...@direct.ca) told this tale:
: It's recently occurred to me that we've been saying we want to help the "Third
: world" countries all my life. We hadn't expected that to happen through an
: equalization of standard of living (and wealth creation) from us to them,
: however. I don't know that this is necessarily a "bad thing". Moving from
: closed to openly competitive markets will require some adjustment, especially of
: expectations for the general populace. Seems that's why so many are glum now.
Yes, that's a good way to look at it, _BUT_, does globalization benefit only
the wealthy in third world countries, or does it benefit everyone? I don't
believe so.
Certainly globalization is creating plenty of wealth in this country, but
that new wealth is confined to a relatively small percentage of the
population.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Morgan | Axiom of Infinity:
San Jose, CA ! An inductive (i.e. infinite)
kmo...@netcom.com | set exists!
For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they
like.
-- Abraham Lincoln
David Lloyd-Jones
On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 20:17:04 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>It's recently occurred to me that we've been saying we want to help the "Third
>world" countries all my life. We hadn't expected that to happen through an
>equalization of standard of living (and wealth creation) from us to them,
>however. I don't know that this is necessarily a "bad thing". Moving from
>closed to openly competitive markets will require some adjustment, especially of
>expectations for the general populace. Seems that's why so many are glum now.
Ten or twelve years ago I did an undergraduate thesis on the theme
"What happens if the Martians eat the Canadian textile industry?" One
of the oddities I ran across was that Canada's foreign aid to
Malaysia, in the $45 to $70 million range, I forget exactly, was
pretty much the same as the amount of damage we did to that country by
enforcing the obscene Multi-Fiber Agreement on its shirt export
industry.
-dlj.
Kalervo Rudanko
"Paul Jenkins" <pjen...@igs.net> wrote:
>The real question in my view is why the "information revolution" has not
>translated into rapid productivity growth. Indeed, productivity has been
>stagnant in most industrial countries since the early 1970s, after rising
>rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s.
I believe that a problem is how to measure the productivity. For
instance, do the official figures show any productivity improvement,
when the PC prices are constant but the performance of the PCs
doubles?
In addition, the development of the national productivity is a
different matter from the productivity development of a given
manufacturer, for instance.
At least in Europe, the national productivity has been depressed by
the growing public sector and the large unemployment.
kr
Gary Forbis
I just had an insight into the title of this thread and of another
labelled
"The Limits To Growth."
Generally "full employment" refers to something less than 100%
employment
because there will always be people between jobs for one reason or
another
(such as training for a new profession or changing cities.)
Maybe the rate of growth is limited by something other than technology
and a growing public sector and larger unemployment are responses to
this
limiting factor in the face of technology that would push it past that.
Examples where technology improvements may not affect productivity are:
Word processing is not improved much by faster CPUs after a certain
level
is reached. House sales are not effectively limited by the speed of
their
production.
For a long time computer manufacturers believed in something called
Amdahl's law. It said that no matter how many processors one threw
at a problem the speedup wouldn't double that of a single processor.
For this reason most of the effort went into faster processors. Now
it seems we can make better use of processors by appropriately chunking
problems.
During the late fifties I remember buying some "new" toys and games that
were manufactured during the thirties. Consumption was the limiting
factor,
not production. The sixties were labeled "the throw away generation"
as we learned producers can't afford to produce unless consumers
consume.
The "Anti-materialism" of the late sixties and early seventies were in
part a rationalization for excess consumption as was planned
obsolesence.
Well, enough for this stream of consciousness. Has anyone given serious
thought about this line of reasoning or have reasons why it should not
be
given serious thought?
--
--gary
for...@accessone.com
Doug Bolton
I suppose we could argue about what/who? created iron or coal or even a tropical
rain forest ecosystem (undeniably resources), but with the practical application
of genetic engineering on the horizon, it won't matter. Maybe that's a positive,
maybe not.
Doug.
David Lloyd-Jones
Iron and coal are worthless minerals until a civilization comes along
and makes value for them. At this point they become resources. The
_resourcefulness_ of the civilization is what imparts "resourceness"
to othewise worthless matter.
The "tropical rainforests" -- that's nice-nice talk for jungle -- of
the Amazon and Congo basins were caused by smallpox destroying the
civilizations which had previously cut, burned, and otherwise
resourcefully used the territory -- and kept the jungle from getting
out of hand as it has been for the last hundred years or so.
With population increase it looks as though both areas may return to
the usefulness they had before the disease carrying Europeans came.
-dlj.
Jay Hanson
-> On 26 Dec 1996 19:55:43 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
wrote:
->
-> >On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 18:53:10 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton)
wrote:
-> >
-> >>It's my belief that any species, given no natural controls, will
expand it's
-> >>population to use all available resources. That's what we're
doing.
-> >
-> >That gets it pretty much all wrong in a nutshell. Resources are
-> >things we create, not things we use up.
dlj has a self-evidently inverted world view. Much like the
men who used to think that the earth was flat, or that the sun
revolved around the earth.
dlj's world view has evidently evolved with his study of
neoclassical economics (NC), which holds that economic growth
can continue forever.
Ecological economics derives its contrary conclusion by
looking at the economy from a fundamentally different world
view than NC.
The NC view could be called the "social/economic world
view". The NC view sees our ecosystem as a subsystem of
our social/economic system. In other words, our ecosystem
is a pile of "natural resources" to be put to our best use --
all things to all people.
. . .
The opposite view could be called the "biophysical" world view
(BP). Ecologists (and other natural scientists) are trained
to see the BP view.
This BP view sees that that human social systems -- and humans
themselves -- are subsystems of our ecosystem. Moreover, the
BP view sees our ecosystem as our LIVING LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEM.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The hierarchy here is obvious, no life-support = no life.
Our life-support system has its own requirements that are not
well-known and have no relationship to markets.
These seem to be the two big views here in the First World.
Obviously, neoclassical economists are not trained in living
systems. When living systems are cut-in-half, they may die.
. . and those parasites that depend upon now-dead systems
for life, die too.
Indeed, there is now scientific evidence the we may have less
than 35 years before the "functional integrity" of our
ecosystem is destroyed. See, for example,
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page5.htm
From the beginning, rationality has never held a prominent place
our in society. In the final analysis, the belief in the
promises of endless economic growth is rooted in a hidden,
crippling fear of scarcity; and rational debate rarely manages
to bring this fear out into the open, let alone confront it.
The admission of limits to growth also brings all kinds of nasty
redistribution questions, so naturally the present power holders
will try to maintain the status quo as long as possible. I
guess if the peasants are dumb enough to believe in endless
economic growth, well, then they will deserve what they
will get -- nothing.
Jay
=========================================================
More references:
The two most prestigious scientific institutions
in the world, The National Academy of Sciences and
the Royal Society, issued a joint public statement
in 1992 that ended with:
"The future of our planet is in the balance.
Sustainable development can be achieved, but
only if irreversible degradation of the
environment can be halted in time. The next 30
years may be crucial."
Archived at:
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page7.htm
Furthermore, in 1992 a WARNING TO HUMANITY was issued
by the Union of Concerned Scientists that began:
"Human beings and the natural world are on a
collision course. Human activities inflict
harsh and often irreversible damage on the
environment and on critical resources. If not
checked, many of our current practices put at
serious risk the future that we wish for human
society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and
may so alter the living world that it will be
unable to sustain life in the manner that we
know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are
to avoid the collision our present course will
bring about."
This warning was signed by over 1,500 members of
national, regional, and international science
academies have signed the Warning. Sixty-nine
nations from all parts of Earth are represented,
including each of the twelve most populous
nations and the nineteen largest economic powers.
It was also signed by 99 Nobel Prize winners.
Archived at:
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page8.htm
And finally, in 1993 a joint statement by 58 of
the world's scientific academies said:
"In our judgement, humanity's ability to deal
successfully with its social, economic, and
environmental problems will require the
achievement of zero population growth within
the lifetime of our children."
Archived at:
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page75.htm
David Lloyd-Jones
On Sun, 29 Dec 1996 16:03:59 -1000, Jay Hanson <jha...@ilhawaii.net>
wrote:
>
>dlj has a self-evidently inverted world view. Much like the
> men who used to think that the earth was flat, or that the sun
> revolved around the earth.
Another Hanson post promoting Hanson's other posts. <Yawn!>
-dlj.
Max Jacobs
Doug Bolton wrote:
>
>
> Sure there are lots of webmiesters and I don't pretend to know what sort of jobs
> the future holds, but ... seems to me that tech will require far fewer jobs
> than industrialization did (that's a good part of the point in doing it, after
> all).
>
Well lets look at an example. AT&T was recently maligned for laying off
a part of its workforce (7700 to date). However, due to the surge in
the popularity of the Internet and planned increased local telephone
competition the net loss in jobs is really only 500 (which is less that
one half of one percent of its workforce). AT&T was shifting away from
markets it was not doing well in, to ones that it hopes it can do well
in. And once local telephone competition actually happens, they will
probably employ many more people.
Doug Bolton
Mutli-Fiber Agreement ? That sounds weird.
Yes, Canada is a very strange country in its use of foreign aid.
We subsidize foreign purchases of our products to keep non-viable industries
alive (like Atomic Energy Canada). In the past we have routinely given "under
developed" countries equipment they can't use or maintain in order to bolster
Canadian manufacturers with government money.
They're getting smarter now and insist on tech transfer as part of the sale.
Doug.
Doug Bolton
But who's going to support the growing public sector ? People seem to see
employment as a responsibility of the state up to and including direct
employment. We've universally run out of money to continue doing this.
>
>Examples where technology improvements may not affect productivity are:
>Word processing is not improved much by faster CPUs after a certain
>level is reached.
Voice generated word processing would, though.
> House sales are not effectively limited by the speed of
>their production.
The situation often occurs where a particular type of housing is over built (too
many) and drives prices down to where building stops. It doesn't resume until a
substantial increase in the price occurs due to a shortage of that type of
housing.
>For a long time computer manufacturers believed in something called
>Amdahl's law. It said that no matter how many processors one threw
>at a problem the speedup wouldn't double that of a single processor.
>For this reason most of the effort went into faster processors. Now
>it seems we can make better use of processors by appropriately chunking
>problems.
>
>During the late fifties I remember buying some "new" toys and games that
>were manufactured during the thirties. Consumption was the limiting
>factor,
>not production. The sixties were labeled "the throw away generation"
>as we learned producers can't afford to produce unless consumers
>consume.
>The "Anti-materialism" of the late sixties and early seventies were in
>part a rationalization for excess consumption as was planned
>obsolesence.
Us hippies turned into (wana be) yuppies and out consumed our parents during the
80's. Tech has, by it's nature, created rapid obsolesence. No need to worry
about what to produce next, just who'll be first.
>Well, enough for this stream of consciousness.
Fun, isn't it ?
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On 28 Dec 1996 03:20:32 GMT, "Paul Jenkins" <pjen...@igs.net> wrote:
>Economic theory postulates that labour demand is based on the marginal
>productivity of labour. Any technological development that raises
>productivity will tend to increase real wages. Therefore to the extent
>that technological change raises productivity, it will translate into some
>combination of higher real wages and employment.
The resource industries have experienced major job loss over the last 30 years
due to mechanization. No one expects those jobs to come back. The wages have
increased but the employment certainly hasn't. I doubt if the number of people
producing the equipment equals or exceeds the number that the equipment has
unemployed. The effects of increased productivity through the mechanization of
those industries may have increased employment elsewhere in the economy but not
in the extraction or, I think, in refining or manufacturing of the extracted
material. These industries are all undergoing the same automation process.
>The real question in my view is why the "information revolution" has not
>translated into rapid productivity growth. Indeed, productivity has been
>stagnant in most industrial countries since the early 1970s, after rising
>rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. Understanding this puzzle is much more
>important than trying to guess who will be winners and losers when/if new
>technology begins to increase productivity.
Doesn't that coincide with the rapid growth in the middle class and consumerism.
Possibly people worked harder with fewer perks then than we do now and so were
more productive. With unions offsetting the gains of automation perhaps we
reached a plateau (I've heard some real horror stories). Isn't this often cited
as one of the reasons why companies relocate to more accommodative areas.
The "information revolution" is still in it's infancy and so we'll have to wait
to see the results. Perhaps it won't be reflected so much in productivity
(fully automated factories) but more in new products and services, and an
ability to rapidly switch to new ones, than volume.
> History suggests that the benefits of new technology are diffused much
> more widely than one would have expected.
I believe that's why we're seeing the effects of the "information revolution" as
a major social change comparable to the previous changes from hunter/gatherer to
agrarian to industrial to knowledge/information/communication.
Doug Bolton
On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 21:07:04 GMT, kmo...@netcom.com (Kevin Morgan) wrote:
>Once upon a time, Doug Bolton (me...@direct.ca) told this tale:
>
>: It's recently occurred to me that we've been saying we want to help the "Third
>: world" countries all my life. We hadn't expected that to happen through an
>: equalization of standard of living (and wealth creation) from us to them,
>: however. I don't know that this is necessarily a "bad thing". Moving from
>: closed to openly competitive markets will require some adjustment, especially of
>: expectations for the general populace. Seems that's why so many are glum now.
>
>Yes, that's a good way to look at it, _BUT_, does globalization benefit only
>the wealthy in third world countries, or does it benefit everyone? I don't
>believe so.
It is creating middle classes in Asia, and eventually in eastern Europe.
>Certainly globalization is creating plenty of wealth in this country, but
>that new wealth is confined to a relatively small percentage of the
>population.
There are two things that I think are wrong with Western Capitalism.
The shift to a fundamental dependance on consumption for consumptions sake to
keep the thing going (look what happens when we've a stall in GDP growth).
The pervasiveness of oligarchies. Having a very small number of people owning
most of the assets doesn't allow for either a free market or free enterprise as
they create virtual monopolies and have substantial influence with governments
(I'm being kind here). While it has worked so far, I think it could work a lot
better. I'm hoping the tech revolution will fracture their control by allowing
people to circumvent it and create new opportunities.
Doug.
Jay Hanson
David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
> Another Hanson post promoting Hanson's other posts. <Yawn!>
This is dlj's code for "please don't look at it."
He's trying to keep science from you because he
promotes "the economics of killing."
First, put the environment issue in context:
I have already cited a vast amount of scientific
literature [contrary to dlj's BULLSHIT, the
material I am referencing was published by the
science academies -- I am only archiving them].
AND YET THE BULLSHIT gushes from personalities
like David Lloyd-Jones, Rush Limbaugh, S. Fred
Singer, Dixie Lee Ray, Lou Guzzo, Julian Simon,
Gregg Easterbrook, George Reisman, Ronald Baily,
and so on.
But wait, there's more:
"Cigarette smoking causes about 435,000 American
deaths each year. During the last 40 years,
roughly 17 million Americans have been killed
by tobacco smoke while tobacco companies have
pocketed something like a thousand billion
dollars." [RHWN #321]
So in our society, artificial people (corporations)
are not only allowed to kill natural-born people
(your kids) -- they are ENCOURAGED to kill them.
HOW CAN THAT BE????
It is because killing innocent people is implied
in our present economic system -- it's economical.
Consider the economics of killing Africans:
"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load
of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is
impeccable...because foregone earnings from
increased morbidity" are low. He adds that "the
underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly
underpolluted; their air quality is probably vastly
inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles...."
World Bank's chief economist, Lawrence Summers
[The Economist, Feb. 8, 1992].
When David Lloyd-Jones calls for "more of the same",
it is exactly like the Chairman of Phillip Morris
calling for "more of the same" -- he just doesn't
care if it kills you. If you are stupid enough to
believe his BULLSHIT, well then you will get what
you deserve -- nothing!
Jay -- http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/
......................................................
Lester Thurow says free-market theory extends
far beyond the realm of conventional economics:
"It is, in short . . . also a political philosophy,
often becoming something approaching a religion."
"No other discipline attempts to make the world act
as it thinks the world should act. But of course
what Homo sapiens does and what Homo oeconomicus
should do are often quite different. That,
however, does not make the basic model wrong,
as it would in every other discipline. It just
means that actions must be taken to bend Homo
sapiens into conformity with Homo oeconomicus.
So, instead of adjusting theory to reality,
reality is adjusted to theory."
Jay Hanson
> >Yes, that's a good way to look at it, _BUT_, does globalization benefit only
> >the wealthy in third world countries, or does it benefit everyone? I don't
> >believe so.
Neoclassical economics admits to no objective measure of human
welfare. So wheither anything "benifits" anyone or not is not
a question neoclassical economics can answer.
Even though the word is often used by economists, it is only for
political purposes.
Jay
Jay Hanson
> > Sure there are lots of webmiesters and I don't pretend to know what sort of jobs
> > the future holds, but ... seems to me that tech will require far fewer jobs
> > than industrialization did (that's a good part of the point in doing it, after
> > all).
===================================================================
TWO BOOK REVIEWS FROM FUTURE SURVEY
Work and Pay in the Twenty-First Century: An Impending Crisis,
Joseph F. Coates (President, Coates & Jarratt, Washington),
Employment Relations Today, Spring 1995, 17-22. (Reprints
free from Coates & Jarratt).
Productivity improvements largely associated with infotech may
be raising a critical new issue: coping with large-scale,
permanent unemployment. Factors in creating a labor surplus:
1) Downsizing: every big corporation is in the midst of or has
completed the disposal of an average of 10-20% of its workforce,
and prefers to extend overtime rather than hire new workers; 2)
Contingent Workers: the Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts
that this corporate strategy for cost containment will result in
less than full-time, standard workers growing from 30% of
today's labor force to 50% by 2000; 3) Distributed Work: those
working outside the traditional workplace are roughly estimated
at 3.5% of today's workforce; this could grow to 20% by 2005 and
40% by 2020 (employers benefit by getting workers out of
relatively expensive office space, while workers gain more
flexibility); 4) Work Force Expansion: there is a current
shortage of entry-level labor, but around 2005 the baby boom
echo generation will enter the job market in massive numbers
that will rival the baby boom itself; 5) Workforce Quality: a
significant part of the labor force is "in the broadest sense
dyslexic" (weak in symbolic, oral, and written skills). Vast
technological unemployment in the manufacturing and service
sectors, along with large numbers of new workers (many unfit for
information society work), "could substantially increase
unemployment over the next one to two decades. Without
intervention, about 20% unemployment in a generally
wage-depressed workforce is likely."
Among the wide range of options to provide people with a
satisfactory life and to stimulate the economy: 1) reduce the
workweek from 40 to 32 hours ("the most attractive and easiest
remedy to implement"); 2) maintain the time at work, but
mandate more training and education; 3) encourage more
midcareer schooling; 4) promote earlier retirement (speeding up
long-term trends); 5) spread ownership so that rents or
dividends substitute for wages and other forms of payment; 6)
foster public service projects. [NOTE: Add to this list the
options of mandating prorated benefits for part-time work (which
some workers might then choose), standardized hours for salaried
workers, and other disincentives for overtime, as proposed by
Juliet Schor in The Overworked American (Basic Books, 1992; FS
Annual 1993 #11931).] (unemployment to increase)
----------------------------------------------------------------
The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the
Dawn of the Post-Market Era. Jeremy Rifkin (President,
Foundation on Economic Trends, Washington). Foreword by Robert
L. Heilbroner. NY: Tarcher/Putnam, Jan 1995/350p/$24.95.
According to The World Employment Situation (Geneva:
International Labor Organization, 1994), more than 800 million
people are now unemployed or underemployed in the world. This
figure is likely to rise sharply by 2000 because of millions of
new entrants into the workforce combined with a technology
revolution that is fast replacing humans with machines in
virtually every sector and industry. After years of wishful
forecasts and false starts, the information age has arrived,
throwing the world community into the grip of a third great
industrial revolution. In the years ahead, more sophisticated
software technologies will bring civilization ever-closer to a
near-workerless world, forcing every nation to rethink the role
of human beings in the social process. "Redefining
opportunities and responsibilities for millions of people in a
society absent of mass formal employment is likely to be the
single most pressing social issue of the coming century." In
the past, when new technologies replaced workers in a given
sector, new sectors have always emerged. Today, only the
knowledge sector -- made up of a small elite is growing; it is
not expected to absorb more than a fraction of the unemployed.
Chapters discuss substituting software for employees (more than
75% of the labor force in most industrial nations works in
simple tasks that can be automated to some degree),
re-engineering the workplace, trickle-down technology (the
dubious theory that dramatic benefits for all will eventually
trickle down to the mass of workers), visions of
techno-paradise, automation and the making of the urban
underclass, past concerns about automation, post-Fordism (the
Japanese production model), the mechanization of agriculture,
automation of manufacturing and services, high-tech winners and
losers, the spread of automation into the Third World, and the
dramatic rise in crime and random violence resulting from
unemployment.
If there is to be a successful transition into the post-market
era of the 21st century, two specific courses of action must be
vigorously pursued: productivity gains resulting from new
technologies must be shared, and -- in that employment is
shrinking in the market economy and in the public sector --
greater attention must be focused on the third sector: the
non-market or social economy. Proposals include: 1) a shorter
workweek (gaining much support in Europe, and likely to be
implemented in many countries by the early 21st century); 2) a
new social contract allowing workers to benefit from
productivity increases; 3) encouraging service to others in the
third sector by providing a tax deduction for every hour of
volunteer time given to tax-exempt organizations (this "shadow
wage" would insure greater volunteerism and reduce the need for
expensive government programs); 4) governments should consider
paying a "social wage" as an alternative to welfare payments,
for those willing to be retrained and placed in third sector
jobs to educate the young, restore family life, and rebuild
communities (adding on earlier arguments by Robert Theobald for
a guaranteed income, and by Milton Friedman for a negative
income tax); 5) funds to finance the transition could be raised
by a value-added tax on non-essential goods and services. In
sum, "a transformed third sector offers the only viable means
for constructively channeling the surplus labor cast off by the
global market." The end of work could be a death sentence for
civilization, or the start of a great social transformation -- a
rebirth of the human spirit. [NOTE: Clearly written,
well-documented, and better than any of Rifkin's previous 12
books. The hostile review in The Washington Post, however,
calls it "a rear-guard action against the future . . . an
updated version of the Luddite argument . . . vulgar Marxist
fantasies of machines making people obsolete." ALSO SEE: The End
of Jobs by Richard Barnet (Harper's, Sept 1993, FS Annual 1995
#13114).] (unemployment to increase)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Future Survey is published by the World Future Society, an
association for the study of alternative futures. The Society is
a non-profit educational and scientific organization founded in
1966. It acts as an impartial clearinghouse for a variety of
different views and does not take positions on what will or
should happen in the future. Future Survey (ISSN: 0190-3241) is
published monthly by the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont
Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. Subscription
Rates: $79 per year for individuals; $119 per year for libraries
(both subscription rates include Future Survey Annual). Single
copies of monthly issues cost $9.50 each. For Air Mail service
worldwide, add $25. Phone orders welcome: (301) 656-8274.
John McCarthy
The view that improvements in productivity is just about to result in
very large scale permanent employment is old - 1920s and maybe older.
The depression was taken by some as confirmation of the theory, and
recovery was not predicted. There were new predictions of imminent
permanent large scale unemployment after WWII. For example,
automation in mining was taken as an example. Indeed the number of
underground miners went from about 700,000 to 70,000 resulting in some
distress in Appalachian areas where there was no other industry.
Miners had to move out to get other jobs. Nevertheless, the total
amount of unemployment has fluctuated in a rather narrow range.
People's demand for goods, services and leisure is so far insatiable.
Now we have new predictions of imminent large scale permanent
unemployment. Why should we believe these predictions any more than
the previous predictions that did not materialize?
I see no arguments in the books reviewed in the post by Hanson and no
new remedies. There has been a reduction in the work week over the
decades, but it seems the workers prefer more wages, better health
benefits and longer vacations to reduction in the workweek per se.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
David Lloyd-Jones
On Tue, 31 Dec 1996 08:03:01 -1000, Jay Hanson <jha...@ilhawaii.net>
wrote:
>> >Yes, that's a good way to look at it, _BUT_, does globalization benefit only
>> >the wealthy in third world countries, or does it benefit everyone? I don't
>> >believe so.
>
>Neoclassical economics admits to no objective measure of human
>welfare. So wheither anything "benifits" anyone or not is not
>a question neoclassical economics can answer.
Hey, Jay,
Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all today?
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
On Tue, 31 Dec 1996 07:59:13 -1000, Jay Hanson <jha...@ilhawaii.net>
wrote:
>When David Lloyd-Jones calls for "more of the same",
>it is exactly like the Chairman of Phillip Morris
>calling for "more of the same" -- he just doesn't
>care if it kills you. If you are stupid enough to
>believe his BULLSHIT, well then you will get what
>you deserve -- nothing!
1.) I have at no time ever called for "more of the same," in those
words (Hanson's quotation marks are bogus) or in intent. Hanson's
statement is a lie and a slander, and I request a retraction and
apology.
2.) It is not ocrrect that I don't care if tobacco kills you. I have
quite smoking myself, and actively discouraged several others,
successfully, to quite smoking. Hason's statement is a lie, and I
request a retraction and apology.
3.) Hanson seems to imply that I do not care if people are killed by
environmental pollution. I state categorically that this is
incorrect, and if this is indeed what Hanson intended to imply I
demand a retraction and apology.
I see that Hanson is trying to paint me as a "personaity like Rush
Limbaugh," presumably in order to establish his supposed right to
libel and slander me without the protections of a private citizen. I
am not such a personality; I am a private citizen, and insist on all
the rights and protections of such.
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
Michael L. Coburn
In article <32c5c924.5498967@news>, Doug Bolton <me...@direct.ca> wrote:
>On 24 Dec 1996 18:12:08 GMT, mco...@coho.halcyon.com (Michael L. Coburn) wrote:
>
>>
>> The population of the Earth remained somewhat constant until
>>agricultural technology occurred, it then spurted and leveled off again
>>until the industrial revolution. Conclusion: technological advance is of
>>no real benefit because women and religious idiots will just insist on
>>having more babies. Stated a differnt way: humans are like vermin, and
>>the more corn there is, the more vermin there are. Jobs are not
>>deminished by technology because there are always more mouths to feed.
>
>It's my belief that any species, given no natural controls, will expand it's
>
>
>Doug.
This should not hold true for a species which is capable of
reason. It would seem that if we are smart enough to "save" for the
future, and smart enough to understand simple laws of supply and demand,
then we could realize that the less people there are, then the more
'stuff' there is for the ones that remain. Although this should not lead
us to exterminate others, it should lead us to conclude that expanding
populations are the cause of most poverty, and not the automation of
work that otherwise would be manual. To be sure, there are many obsticles
to the idea of "sharing" the work which remains, but so long as we
continue to operate on such centered, 'fear', basis, and so long as we
seek protection from the storm by following our various 'leaders', we will
remain forever broke, jobless, and hungry.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
* Let me assure you that | Michael L. Coburn | mco...@halcyon.com |
* my employer agrees with| Softfolks Inc. | softfolk.wa.com |
* what I say. He's me. | UNIX,c,X/Motif,Oracle,DCE,CM,& SYS ADM |
Doug Bolton
On 29 Dec 1996 20:51:51 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>On Sun, 29 Dec 1996 20:30:31 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>
>>On 26 Dec 1996 19:55:43 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 18:53:10 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>>>
>>>>It's my belief that any species, given no natural controls, will expand it's
>>>>population to use all available resources. That's what we're doing.
>>>
>>>That gets it pretty much all wrong in a nutshell. Resources are
>>>things we create, not things we use up.
>>
>>I suppose we could argue about what/who? created iron or coal or even a tropical
>>rain forest ecosystem (undeniably resources), but with the practical application
>>of genetic engineering on the horizon, it won't matter. Maybe that's a positive,
>>maybe not.
>
>Iron and coal are worthless minerals until a civilization comes along
>and makes value for them. At this point they become resources. The
>_resourcefulness_ of the civilization is what imparts "resourceness"
>to othewise worthless matter.
You previously stated that we create resources, I guess we're having a word game
here. I was referring to "any species" and I don't know if you think earthworms
create resources, though they obviously find things of value to them. We're more
adaptive and ingenious but the principal is the same (at least so far) in that
we're adapting natural items to our use.
I was thinking of predator/prey relationships though this works for any life
form. Given no natural control, any species will use the natural resources
(food, water) available to it to expand it's population until there isn't enough
food to support the population. Biological controls such as drought, predation
and disease control this, creating a cycle of population growth and decline.
We've moved beyond effective natural population controls, though it looks like a
leveraged proposition to me. Again, genetic engineering may change this. The
techies think so. I don't know. We're going to find out.
>The "tropical rainforests" -- that's nice-nice talk for jungle -- of
>the Amazon and Congo basins were caused by smallpox destroying the
>civilizations which had previously cut, burned, and otherwise
>resourcefully used the territory -- and kept the jungle from getting
>out of hand as it has been for the last hundred years or so.
Oh, no ! Accused of nice-nice. Oh the shame ...
I'm sure we won't have to worry about all that third rate agricultural land
going to waste for much longer. Wow, what arrogance ! Like we really know what
we're doing turning all that putrid waste into mcburgers. What bio-diversity ?
All we really need are the agriculturally proven food products. Hope I live to
see that.
>With population increase it looks as though both areas may return to
>the usefulness they had before the disease carrying Europeans came.
The Europeans aren't the only ones anymore.
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On Mon, 30 Dec 1996 10:03:34 -0800, Max Jacobs <mja...@bionomics.org> wrote:
>Doug Bolton wrote:
>>
>
>>
>> Sure there are lots of webmiesters and I don't pretend to know what sort of jobs
>> the future holds, but ... seems to me that tech will require far fewer jobs
>> than industrialization did (that's a good part of the point in doing it, after
>> all).
>>
>
>Well lets look at an example. AT&T was recently maligned for laying off
>a part of its workforce (7700 to date). However, due to the surge in
>the popularity of the Internet and planned increased local telephone
>competition the net loss in jobs is really only 500 (which is less that
>one half of one percent of its workforce). AT&T was shifting away from
>markets it was not doing well in, to ones that it hopes it can do well
>in. And once local telephone competition actually happens, they will
>probably employ many more people.
I'd heard that it was initially 40,000. 15k were called back when AT&T realized
they'd underestimated the growth in their business.
The internet appliance (or tv, or whatever) may really damage the phone
companies by offering telephone services, among many others. The phone service
has already been substantially automated. Are they employing as many people as
they did 10-20 years ago ? As the core of the communication network, it'll have
to become more efficient through more automation. Yes, the field will employ
people, initially maybe more people. As better systems are created though, fewer
will be needed to operate and maintain them. Or do you really think future
systems will require more people ?
>Viewing the economy as an ecosystem
That's an interesting idea. A guy named "Grantland" was espousing something
similar in a different group. Got a lot of flak.
Doug.
Mason A. Clark
On 31 Dec 1996 19:54:51 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Dec 1996 08:03:01 -1000, Jay Hanson <jha...@ilhawaii.net>
> wrote:
>
> >> >Yes, that's a good way to look at it, _BUT_, does globalization benefit only
> >> >the wealthy in third world countries, or does it benefit everyone? I don't
> >> >believe so.
> >
> >Neoclassical economics admits to no objective measure of human
> >welfare. So wheither anything "benifits" anyone or not is not
> >a question neoclassical economics can answer.
>
> Hey, Jay,
>
> Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all today?
>
> -dlj.
>
Of course there ARE objective measures of human welfare.
Life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, deaths from
small pox, crippled legs from poliomyelitis, etc etc.
NONE of these or any other objective measure of human welfare is
used by neoclassical economics, nor by most brands of economics.
This is not inherent in the study of economics; it is a choice made by
most of the economists.
VIVA LA GDP !
-----------------------------------------------
Mason A Clark mas...@ix.netcom.com
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210
http://www.netcom.com/~masonc (slow,wait)
Vickery on the "Deficit" and notes on Vickrey
http://www.netcom.com/~masonc/vickrey.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210/vickrey.html
The Boskin report on the CPI, itself and links:
http://www.naz.com/personal/masonc/boskin.html
---------------------------------------------------
Mason A. Clark
On 31 Dec 1996 19:44:07 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
> The view that improvements in productivity is just about to result in
> very large scale permanent employment is old - 1920s and maybe older.
> The depression was taken by some as confirmation of the theory, and
> recovery was not predicted. There were new predictions of imminent
> permanent large scale unemployment after WWII. For example,
> automation in mining was taken as an example. Indeed the number of
> underground miners went from about 700,000 to 70,000 resulting in some
> distress in Appalachian areas where there was no other industry.
> Miners had to move out to get other jobs. Nevertheless, the total
> amount of unemployment has fluctuated in a rather narrow range.
McCarthy should know about "differences between large numbers."
Unemployment has certainly NOT "fluctuated in a rather narrow range."
Unemployment was effectively zero during WW II and is now at an
unreported number, perhaps 12% - it's not simple to define unless you
happen have the good fortune of being a simplistic person.
> People's demand for goods, services and leisure is so far insatiable.
>
Rumors are that the Xmas retail season was disappointing. Again, the
differences between large numbers, profit this time. A small fluctuation
in the large "insatiable" demand can cause a major effect on the economy.
> Now we have new predictions of imminent large scale permanent
> unemployment. Why should we believe these predictions any more than
> the previous predictions that did not materialize?
>
"Did not materialize"? Oh, you mean on the Stanford campus. OK, true.
> I see no arguments in the books reviewed in the post by Hanson and no
> new remedies. There has been a reduction in the work week over the
> decades, but it seems the workers prefer more wages, better health
> benefits and longer vacations to reduction in the workweek per se.
>
"A reduction in the work week"? For whom? There has been a split in
employment between employees who work more than 40 hours a week and
those who work half-time. "Over the decades"? hardly. The nominal work
week came down early in the century and has not changed since. During
the great growth of the GDP since 1950, and since the end of the Cold War,
the work week has not decreased. As long as there is an unemployed labor
pool (the goal of the Federal Reserve?) employers will minimize their costs
by doing whatever works for them, e.g. part-time and temporary workers.
To keep the world going in spite of labor-saving machinery, the demand
must be always pushed forward. The cart must be pushed in front of the
horse. Advertise. Advertise. Advertise. No problem. Now go get that
"Tickle Me Elmo" for your kids. Digital TV will rescue capitalism.
Mason A. Clark
David Lloyd-Jones
>
>> Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all today?
>>
>> -dlj.
>>
>Of course there ARE objective measures of human welfare.
>Life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, deaths from
>small pox, crippled legs from poliomyelitis, etc etc.
>
>NONE of these or any other objective measure of human welfare is
>used by neoclassical economics, nor by most brands of economics.
>This is not inherent in the study of economics; it is a choice made by
>most of the economists.
Mason,
All of these are objectively measurable things which almost everybody
agrees are good.
None of them individually, nor any weighted combination of them, is
an objectively measurable measure of human welfare.
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
On Wed, 01 Jan 1997 08:34:04 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>We've moved beyond effective natural population controls, though it looks like a
>leveraged proposition to me. Again, genetic engineering may change this. The
>techies think so. I don't know. We're going to find out.
Depends what you call a natural control, dunnit? Our rate of
population increase has stopped growing, and is now dropping. The
number of new babies is now dropping by a million or two every year.
It is only the number of old folks which is exploding, and this will
stop in about twenty or thrity years.
My guess is that human population is controlled by, ahem, human
nature. Now that television, cosmetics, and fizzy drinks are
everywhere, we can expect non-replacement birth rates to be general
within a generation.
The first signs of this are that children-per-mother have halved in
Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda in the last ten years. (Children per mother
is a mathematical calculation based on surveys of all the cohorts of
mothers; there has not been any huge kill-off of children to achieve
this remarkable change.)
While children per mother has dropped very quickly everywhere, the
number of actual mothers in the world will also drop, starting around
1998, when the first declining cohort of children, the babies of 1986,
start menstruating.
>I'm sure we won't have to worry about all that third rate agricultural land
>going to waste for much longer. Wow, what arrogance ! Like we really know what
>we're doing turning all that putrid waste into mcburgers. What bio-diversity ?
McBurgers have now peaked out in the rich countries. Golden arches,
Wendy's and the rest are fighting each other over a declining market
for beef. This trend will probably accelerate once mad cow disease
goes world-wide -- a proposition which will probably occur to
Greenpeace or some other enterprising group fairly soon.
>All we really need are the agriculturally proven food products. Hope I live to
>see that.
What do you mean by "agriculturally proven food products"? It seems
to me we have a 6,000++ year string of unbroken successes, with more
in the works. I'm confident that I'll live to see somebody collect
that automatic Nobel that's out thre for a nitrogen-fixing grain. Now
all we need is the fartless cow
.
>>With population increase it looks as though both areas may return to
>>the usefulness they had before the disease carrying Europeans came.
>
>The Europeans aren't the only ones anymore.
The Europeans are Johnny-come-latelies. Before the smallpox all those
ziggaruts, pyramids, and earthworks out in the jungle were put in
place by major agrcultural civilizations. The Spanish were able to
ride horses through the Amazon, areas which can only be reached by
boat today. The boats which greeted Stanley on the Congo River were
of a level of craftsmanship equal to that of Polynesia; a year later
their makers were largely dead from smallpox, and their civilizations
winked out overnight.
The overgrown jungles in those two basins are recent creations.
Turning the jungle back into human habitat is merely turning the clock
back a few centuries.
Best to all for '97. The future is looking better every year. The
twentieth century has been in some ways a truly lousy time -- but it's
also seen us develop some of the major tools for getting the human
race back on track.
How be we celebrate 2,000 as the end of the Middle Ages?
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
I don't get it. Who has ever looked at the economy any other way?
Ecology is simply the realisation that plants and animals have
economies too, and that both of us are an overall economy as well.
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
>McCarthy should know about "differences between large numbers."
>Unemployment has certainly NOT "fluctuated in a rather narrow range."
>Unemployment was effectively zero during WW II and is now at an
>unreported number, perhaps 12% - it's not simple to define unless you
>happen have the good fortune of being a simplistic person.
Where does Mason get the idea that there was full employment during
WWII? To me it looks like a lot of women went to work in weapons
factories, and a lot of men who had been on the dole went to camp for
four years instead. Everybody then got to see a few days or weeks of
combat and a lot of trudging around.
Hardly a day of employment in the whole operation. Quite a lot of
governmental income support, and a lot of industrial retooling, both
of which laid the groundwork for the 1945-65 boom, which only got
choked off by the Vietnam War.
-dlj
Jay Hanson
David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
> Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all today?
dlj would rather prefer calling things "goods" and
"benefits" "better off" in typical economist fashion
without ever defining them.
Any honest person would either have a measure to
back up these assertions or admidt that it is all
politics. Evidently, economists exchange their
ethics for money.
When the economist says something is "good", he
means it is good for his potfolio. It's just
more BULLSHIT to screw the underclass!
It has to do with the economics of killing.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load
of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is
impeccable...because foregone earnings from
increased morbidity" are low. He adds that "the
underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly
underpolluted; their air quality is probably vastly
inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles...."
World Bank's chief economist, Lawrence Summers
[The Economist, Feb. 8, 1992].
FREE TRADE IS GOOD FOR YOU!!!
Tell that to the poor fuckers in Juarez.
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page77.htm
Jay Hanson
John McCarthy wrote:
> I see no arguments in the books reviewed in the post by Hanson and no
> new remedies. There has been a reduction in the work week over the
Don't you get it McCarthy? The party is over!
==========================================================
THE CONTEXT: End of Economic Growth -- The "Crash" Phase
We in the US, do not have a proactive government -- one that
asks how people want to live in the future, and then plans
for that future. We in the US, fervently believe that the
"invisible hand" is the best planner.
[ http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page4.htm ]
Thus, our social systems can not change until we actually
have a permanent crisis that seems unsolvable given existing
social arrangements. I expect this to occur sometime around
2005 when global oil production peaks.
[ http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page65.htm ]
In AN INQUIRY INTO THE HUMAN PROSPECT, Heilbroner considered
the damage that our economy is inflicting on our life-support
system and projected continuing (but gradually slowing)
economic growth until approximately the year 2005. At that
time, he sees the need for highly authoritarian governments
to control the transition to worldwide economic decline.
I am convinced that Heilbroner is right!
Our singular experience -- the unsolvable crisis -- will
signal the official end of humanity's exuberant expansion
phase and usher in the beginning of its "crash" phase. A
study of the Easter Island experience will give futurists a
sense of what will occur worldwide during the coming century.
[ http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page14.htm ]
Also see Robert Kaplan's THE COMING ANARCHY at
[
http://www.TheAtlantic.com/atlantic/election/connection/foreign/anarcf.htm
or
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page67.htm ]
ACTION
Mostly because of our blind faith in the unseen hand, action
at this point is necessarly limited to PLANNING the rough
outlines of how best to survive the coming "crash" phase --
under "highly authoritarian governments". Since economic growth
will have ended, we must focus on how to redistribute the wealth,
maintain public order, and pay people when there are no
conventional jobs. Rifkin has some very interesting ideas in
this regard.
Jay
fha...@uci.edu
> On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 18:53:10 GMT, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>
> >It's my belief that any species, given no natural controls, will expand it's
> >population to use all available resources. That's what we're doing.
>
> That gets it pretty much all wrong in a nutshell. Resources are
> things we create, not things we use up.
>
> -dlj.
>
Huh?
You mean we create the coal, the natural gas, the oil supplies?
Oh now I understand.
--
Frank Harris
Department of Health Care Administration
California State University-Long Beach and
Department of Economics
University of California-Irvine
fha...@uci.edu
Doug Bolton
On Tue, 31 Dec 1996 08:04:46 -1000, Jay Hanson <jha...@ilhawaii.net> wrote:
>> > Sure there are lots of webmiesters and I don't pretend to know what sort of jobs
>> > the future holds, but ... seems to me that tech will require far fewer jobs
>> > than industrialization did (that's a good part of the point in doing it, after
>> > all).
>
>===================================================================
>
> TWO BOOK REVIEWS FROM FUTURE SURVEY
>
>Work and Pay in the Twenty-First Century: An Impending Crisis,
>Joseph F. Coates (President, Coates & Jarratt, Washington),
>Employment Relations Today, Spring 1995, 17-22. (Reprints
>free from Coates & Jarratt).
Thanks for the interesting reviews. I knew about the Rifkin book but not the
other.
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On 31 Dec 1996 19:44:07 GMT, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
>The view that improvements in productivity is just about to result in
>very large scale permanent employment is old - 1920s and maybe older.
>The depression was taken by some as confirmation of the theory, and
>recovery was not predicted. There were new predictions of imminent
>permanent large scale unemployment after WWII. For example,
>automation in mining was taken as an example. Indeed the number of
>underground miners went from about 700,000 to 70,000 resulting in some
>distress in Appalachian areas where there was no other industry.
>Miners had to move out to get other jobs. Nevertheless, the total
>amount of unemployment has fluctuated in a rather narrow range.
>People's demand for goods, services and leisure is so far insatiable.
>
>Now we have new predictions of imminent large scale permanent
>unemployment. Why should we believe these predictions any more than
>the previous predictions that did not materialize?
>
>I see no arguments in the books reviewed in the post by Hanson and no
>new remedies. There has been a reduction in the work week over the
>decades, but it seems the workers prefer more wages, better health
>benefits and longer vacations to reduction in the workweek per se.
I agree that we do like to dwell on the negative (certainly has been a good book
market), and have done so in the past. Things haven't turned out too badly for
most in the industrialized world.
Still, I'm listening for some rational suggestions as to what will replace the
productive human employment that's disappearing. Saying everything will be
fine, 'cause it has been in the past, isn't much of an answer.
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On 1 Jan 1997 03:46:06 GMT, mco...@coho.halcyon.com (Michael L. Coburn) wrote:
>In article <32c5c924.5498967@news>, Doug Bolton <me...@direct.ca> wrote:
>>On 24 Dec 1996 18:12:08 GMT, mco...@coho.halcyon.com (Michael L. Coburn) wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> The population of the Earth remained somewhat constant until
>>>agricultural technology occurred, it then spurted and leveled off again
>>>until the industrial revolution. Conclusion: technological advance is of
>>>no real benefit because women and religious idiots will just insist on
>>>having more babies. Stated a differnt way: humans are like vermin, and
>>>the more corn there is, the more vermin there are. Jobs are not
>>>deminished by technology because there are always more mouths to feed.
>>
>>It's my belief that any species, given no natural controls, will expand it's
>>population to use all available resources. That's what we're doing.
>>
> ... < deletes> ...
>>
>>Doug.
>
> This should not hold true for a species which is capable of
>reason.
Individually, yes. But as a species we seem to operate much as any other does.
It seems to me inherently contradictory that any species could be capable of
limiting its immediate prospects on the possibility that the taking of an
current benefit would be limiting/damaging, several generations forward. We
talk about it, but I haven't seen it done anywhere. Wait... what about those
parks here in BC that the mining companies were winning about ? Well I'd guess
that when the minerals become valuable enough the government (or who's ever in
charge at that time) will change the rules.
> It would seem that if we are smart enough to "save" for the
>future, and smart enough to understand simple laws of supply and demand,
>then we could realize that the less people there are, then the more
>'stuff' there is for the ones that remain. Although this should not lead
>us to exterminate others, it should lead us to conclude that expanding
>populations are the cause of most poverty, and not the automation of
>work that otherwise would be manual. To be sure, there are many obsticles
>to the idea of "sharing" the work which remains, but so long as we
>continue to operate on such centered, 'fear', basis, and so long as we
>seek protection from the storm by following our various 'leaders', we will
>remain forever broke, jobless, and hungry.
I don't think the desire to propagate one's genes is going to go away any time
soon, seeing as it's the basis of life. The people in China are not terribly
happy with the one child rule. Given a choice, do you think they'd have more ?
Fortunately we're moving away from the 6+ model though, not very practical in an
urban environment with the high cost of maintaining them.
Doug.
David Lloyd-Jones
On Wed, 01 Jan 1997 13:56:18 -1000, Jay Hanson <jha...@ilhawaii.net>
wrote:
>David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>
>> Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all today?
>
>dlj would rather prefer calling things "goods" and
>"benefits" "better off" in typical economist fashion
>without ever defining them.
>
>Any honest person would either have a measure to
>back up these assertions or admidt that it is all
>politics. Evidently, economists exchange their
>ethics for money.
>
>When the economist says something is "good", he
>means it is good for his potfolio. It's just
>more BULLSHIT to screw the underclass!
Something tells me Jay doesn't have an answer to the question. Again,
what I asked was:
Hey, Jay, Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all
today?
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
On Wed, 01 Jan 1997 14:00:15 -1000, Jay Hanson <jha...@ilhawaii.net>
wrote:
>John McCarthy wrote:
>
>> I see no arguments in the books reviewed in the post by Hanson and no
>> new remedies. There has been a reduction in the work week over the
>
>Don't you get it McCarthy? The party is over!
>
Yeah! Get with the program, McCarthy. A year with zeroes at the end,
time for you to panic. Don't just sit there. Run around in circles
and repeat "The world is ending, the world is ending!"
Cheers,
-dlj.
Max Jacobs
Doug Bolton wrote:
>Are they (AT&T) employing as many people as they did 10-20 years ago ?
>
No. AT&T has cut out a lot of the fat from the organization.
Considering it used to not layoff anybody ever, no matter what happened
(including technological innovations like direct dial making man
operator's jobs obsolete). The point of the original post was not to
say that people wont be losing jobs in the information age but that
while certain machine age professions die, certain information age
professions spring to life. The same thing happened during the
Industrial Revolution. From 1900 to 1960, there were 6.3 million less
farm related jobs. But in 1960, there were also 3 million more retail
salespeople (more than 300% more), about a million more engineers , a
million more manufacturing laborers, about a million more mechanics,
etc. than in 1900. (All figures are coming from "What happened to all
those blacksmiths" Forbes, May 6, 1996)
Technological innovation means that the types of jobs may change, not
that there will be less jobs.
Max Jacobs
************************************************************************
The Bionomics Institute
http://www.bionomics.org
Viewing the economy as an ecosystem
************************************************************************
fha...@uci.edu
In article <32d77a97.8668866@news>, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
> I don't think the desire to propagate one's genes is going to go away any time
> soon, seeing as it's the basis of life. The people in China are not terribly
> happy with the one child rule. Given a choice, do you think they'd have
more ?
> Fortunately we're moving away from the 6+ model though, not very
practical in an
> urban environment with the high cost of maintaining them.
>
> Doug.
Ah yes, but Doug without people like my wife and I (four rats and
counting!) how can we hope to support the ponzie scheme that is Social
Security?
A little levity (I hope)
Regards,
fha...@uci.edu
In article <32CBF4...@bionomics.org>, mja...@bionomics.org wrote:
To all who are interested:
This entire line of inquiry seems to ignore a reasonably basic
consideration. I believe that Harberger, Freidman, Hazlitt, Von Mises,
etc discussed the issue of technology at length. Did they not determine
that to treat technological advancement as exogenous is incorrect?
The answer to this question is critical to the resolution of the original
string of inquiry.
Mason A. Clark
On 2 Jan 1997 05:39:42 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> Something tells me Jay doesn't have an answer to the question. Again,
> what I asked was:
>
> Hey, Jay, Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all
> today?
I answered the question once. From this beginning you should not find it
difficult to add many others, and even start calculating an HWI (Human
Welfare Index). It could win you a prize. Or is it just your purpose to
quarrel with that notorious profiteer, Jay Hanson?
For those who missed it:
Of course there ARE objective measures of human welfare.
Life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, deaths from
small pox, crippled legs from poliomyelitis, etc etc.
David Lloyd-Jones
>On 2 Jan 1997 05:39:42 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>> Something tells me Jay doesn't have an answer to the question. Again,
>> what I asked was:
>> Hey, Jay, Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all
>> today?
>I answered the question once. From this beginning you should not find it
>difficult to add many others, and even start calculating an HWI (Human
>Welfare Index). It could win you a prize. Or is it just your purpose to
>quarrel with that notorious profiteer, Jay Hanson?
Mason,
I replied to your post, and I repeat the reply: all the things you
list below are Good Things, but neither they, nor any weighted
grouping of them, adds up to a single objective measure of human
welfare.
As is very often the case, you have supplied a perfectly sound answer
to some totally other question.
Cheers,
-dlj.
Jay Hanson
> See Jones? Now you try it. See how many objective
> measures of human welfare you can find around home.
> Ask your mommie to help.
Once you have mastered the concept, and know what
objective measures of welfare are, see if you
can read about the GENUINE PROGRESS INDICATOR
(remember to keep your dictionary handy):
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page11.htm
Jay Hanson
>On 2 Jan 1997 05:39:42 GMT, d...@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> Something tells me Jay doesn't have an answer to the question. Again,
> what I asked was:
> Hey, Jay, Do you have an objective measure of human welfare for us all
> today?
First of all, we have to define the words "objective" and
"welfare" for the intellectually-challenged Jones because
he does not believe in definitions (most economists don't).
(Ask him what "better off" means when you have a few weeks. <G>)
Objective: Of or having to do with a material object.
Welfare: Health, happiness, and good fortune; well-being.
Now the we have defined the words, we can find lots of
objective measures of human welfare (Jones claims there
aren't any).
When your doctor puts a thermometer into your mouth he
is taking an objective measure of your welfare.
See Jones? Now you try it. See how many objective
measures of human welfare you can find around home.
Ask your mommie to help.
Jay
Thant Tessman
Doug Bolton wrote:
> [...] Given no natural control, any species will use the natural
> resources (food, water) available to it to expand it's population
> until there isn't enough food to support the population. Biological
> controls such as drought, predation and disease control this,
> creating a cycle of population growth and decline. [...]
The population is growing quickest in impoverished countries. This
is counter to what you would expect if indeed human populations grew
to the limits imposed by the availability of resources.
People in impoverished countries have more children than people in
wealthier countries because they're less sure that the children they
do have will survive. The "cure" for population growth is to make
everybody rich. Only when you're rich can you afford clean
air. Only when you're rich can you afford wilderness as something
to appreciate instead of something to merely fear and exploit.
By far the vast majority of human suffering is caused by war and
oppressive governments, not by some imagined decline in the
availability of economic resources.
-thant
--
"There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless
life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless,
even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless." -- Eric Hoffer
Michael L. Coburn
In article <32cf804e.10381153@news>, Doug Bolton <me...@direct.ca> wrote:
>On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 09:38:48 -0800, Max Jacobs <mja...@bionomics.org> wrote:
>
>>Doug Bolton wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I think the point of the original post was that the technologies aren't just
>>> allowing people to work less because it allows them to do it better, it's so
>>> good that it's displacing them. I don't know how this will effect money supply
>>> (other than that unemployed people tend to have less of it). I suppose an
>>> unemployment rate of +10% would eventually make itself felt.
>>>
>>And what about all those poor blacksmiths who lost their jobs because of
>>industrialization? W. Michael Cox of the Dallas Federal Reserve said in
>>the May 6, 1996 Forbes, "As recently as 75 years ago, the U.S. had 10
>>million registered passenger cars and 20.5 million horses. Had our
>>ancestors been able to freeze jobs, the US would be stuck in the horse
>>and buggy era." Or let me put it another way, in 1900 there were 10.1
>>million farm laborers, in 1995 there were 2.3 million farm laborers.
>>That means that 7.8 million jobs were lost in just one industry. But
>>has that caused massive unemployment and hardship? No. Twenty-two of
>>the top 30 jobs (in terms of number of people who have those jobs) were
>>not in the top 30 in 1900 with some of them not even existing yet. For
>>example, there are 1 million computer programmers today, and there were
>>none in 1900. Even if you compare today to 1965, 18 of the top 30 jobs
>>werent in the top thirty in 1965.
>>
>>Think about it, just 3 or 4 years ago nobody had ever heard of a
>>webmaster, now they are everywhere. Funny I dont think they are afraid
>>of machines taking their jobs.
>
>I'm certainly not trying to promote a job freeze. Many of the programming jobs
>you refer to are located in India. It requires little capital expense and even
>with the significantly lower pay rates is a very attractive job by Indian
>standards. USA programmers are now competing directly with the rest of the
>world for those jobs. This is good for the software user as it lowers cost.
>
>Sure there are lots of webmiesters and I don't pretend to know what sort of jobs
>the future holds, but ... seems to me that tech will require far fewer jobs
>than industrialization did (that's a good part of the point in doing it, after
>all).
>
>quickly enough (not too specialized), the future looks very bright. For those
>with enough capital the future always looks bright anyway. For the rest ?
>
>How many McJobs can we create to employ them ? Do we really need all those
>poodle walkers ? Who's going to employ them, the house cleaners ?
>
>I think you optimism runneth over.
>
>Doug.
IMHO there are 3 things which would dramatically improve the lives
of ALL persons as technology improves productivity:
1. We simply MUST quit overpopulating the planet and using the
all new productivity to provide for the additional load.
2. We simply MUST remove social issues (SS, Medical, and
education/care of children) from the control of business interests and
place it in the hands of individuals AND government insurance systems.
3. We simply MUST educate the third world in regard to 1, and 2.
It is problem 2 which prevents the sharing of the work, shorter
work weeks, and more, less stressful jobs. So long as the per employee
overhead remains high, due to per employee benefits, there will be longer
hours for those who have jobs, and less jobs available.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
* Let me assure you that | Michael L. Coburn | mco...@halcyon.com |
* my employer agrees with| Softfolks Inc. | softfolk.wa.com |
* what I say. He's me. | UNIX,c,X/Motif,Oracle,DCE,CM,& SYS ADM |
Jay Hanson
Thant Tessman wrote:
-> The population is growing quickest in impoverished countries. This
-> is counter to what you would expect if indeed human populations grew
-> to the limits imposed by the availability of resources.
Your conclusion based upon your observation is not logical.
Learn about human crash and die-off at:
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page14.htm
David Lloyd-Jones
On Sat, 04 Jan 1997 07:29:19 -1000, Jay Hanson <jha...@ilhawaii.net>
wrote:
>Thant Tessman wrote:
>
>-> The population is growing quickest in impoverished countries. This
>-> is counter to what you would expect if indeed human populations grew
>-> to the limits imposed by the availability of resources.
>
>Your conclusion based upon your observation is not logical.
Hanson fails to identify the logical error -- because there is none.
Tessman's conclusion is perfectly sound given the premises.
-dlj.
Doug Bolton
On Thu, 02 Jan 1997 09:46:25 -0800, Max Jacobs <mja...@bionomics.org> wrote:
>Doug Bolton wrote:
>>Are they (AT&T) employing as many people as they did 10-20 years ago ?
>>
>No. AT&T has cut out a lot of the fat from the organization.
>Considering it used to not layoff anybody ever, no matter what happened
>(including technological innovations like direct dial making man
>operator's jobs obsolete). The point of the original post was not to
>say that people wont be losing jobs in the information age but that
>while certain machine age professions die, certain information age
>professions spring to life. The same thing happened during the
>Industrial Revolution. From 1900 to 1960, there were 6.3 million less
>farm related jobs. But in 1960, there were also 3 million more retail
>salespeople (more than 300% more), about a million more engineers , a
>million more manufacturing laborers, about a million more mechanics,
>etc. than in 1900. (All figures are coming from "What happened to all
>those blacksmiths" Forbes, May 6, 1996)
>
>Technological innovation means that the types of jobs may change, not
>that there will be less jobs.
It has in the past and may in the future. I certainly believe some sort of
stability will be reached, it has to or society will disintegrate.
Looking to the past, yes, the jobs that disappeared were replaced by others.
Because automation in the information age is going to be much more capable of
making decisions (neural net, or some such) as well as actual production, the
potential breath of cuts, from production workers to managers, is going to be
more than just an adjustment. Because of the communications revolution, price
driven retail will not employ the number of people it now does. I'm having a
hard time seeing more jobs. Sure there will be a great demand for information
managers. But how many do we need ? Everyone ? The opportunities for
entrepreneurs will greatly increase, with most of the worlds population being
the market, but can everyone be an entrepreneur ? Seems we'll have to.
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On Thu, 02 Jan 1997 17:57:24 -0800, fha...@uci.edu wrote:
>In article <32CBF4...@bionomics.org>, mja...@bionomics.org wrote:
>
>To all who are interested:
>
>This entire line of inquiry seems to ignore a reasonably basic
>consideration. I believe that Harberger, Freidman, Hazlitt, Von Mises,
>etc discussed the issue of technology at length. Did they not determine
>that to treat technological advancement as exogenous is incorrect?
How is tech advance being treated exogenously here ?
Doug.
Doug Bolton
On Thu, 02 Jan 1997 17:53:12 -0800, fha...@uci.edu wrote:
>In article <32d77a97.8668866@news>, me...@direct.ca (Doug Bolton) wrote:
>
>
>> I don't think the desire to propagate one's genes is going to go away any time
>> soon, seeing as it's the basis of life. The people in China are not terribly
>> happy with the one child rule. Given a choice, do you think they'd have
>more ?
>> Fortunately we're moving away from the 6+ model though, not very
>practical in an
>> urban environment with the high cost of maintaining them.
>>
>> Doug.
>
>Ah yes, but Doug without people like my wife and I (four rats and
>counting!) how can we hope to support the ponzie scheme that is Social
>Security?
>
>A little levity (I hope)
Didn't one of the Kennedy's say (approximately) "You should have as many
children as you can afford" ?
All the politicos are running for cover on that one. And the brokers are
rubbing their hands in anticipation. Glad I'm not an Xer.
Doug.