Create Value, Not Jobs
24th January 2012
The point is, our goal should never be to “create jobs”. Our goal should be to enable people to contribute something valued by other people. The value is the point, not the work. If someone finds a way to provide value to hundreds of millions of people and it requires no more effort from them than batting their eyelashes, that would be a win.
So why are economists like Cowen and Brynjolfsson talking about jobs? The stories they are telling, while far from the same, have a common theme which I interpret as follows: the forward march of technology has made it very difficult for people who have traditionally had low-skill or even middle-skill occupations to contribute value.
More inconvenient truth from a Real Economist. The whole emphasis on ‘creating jobs’ is a species of Cargo Cult — the reason jobs exist is because they contribute to the production process; if they don’t produce, they’re Just Another Welfare Program in a Clever Plastic Face-Saving Disguise.
This is not a matter of semantics. If you think the problem is a lack of jobs, all sorts of dangerous “solutions” may come to mind. Anything from having the government hiring en masse to do make-work, valueless jobs, to setting high tariffs and immigration restrictions so that domestic companies and labor do not have any foreign competition.
Usually an economy, especially a champion economy like ours, has enough surplus to support a limited number of these not-really-jobs welfare slots, but we’re in danger of having the exceptions swallow the rule.
Getting a job is not an end unto itself; the whole point is to trade our labor for other things that we want. Getting a job at the cost of not being able to afford anything is an absurd proposition.
Not that Democrats and other congenital pork-barrel politicians shrink from absurd propositions when it means more power for them.
As for make-work jobs, I would rather the government send the poor a check to do what they want with than to force them to “play real job”. At least then they would have the time to think about how they can contribute something of real value!
Amen.
January 24th, 2012 at 14:22
“As for make-work jobs, I would rather the government send the poor a check to do what they want with than to force them to “play real job”. At least then they would have the time to think about how they can contribute something of real value!”
Nice sentiment–but it’s all just for show. If one actually tried to do it, there would be such an outcry about Creating A Dependent Population that the Nike Riots would look like a picnic. Not to mention where would The Government get this money? From the rich, of course, because they’re the only ones who have any. In other words–dare I say it?–REDISTRIBUTION, that bete-noir of the ‘productive’ class.
No, the environmentalists have finally made their point, if not in the way they imagined it: There are too many people. But it isn’t resources which will be exhausted, but rather our ability to absorb an ever-increasing marginally productive population. Automation and technology have rendered the ordinary worker uneccessary. We can’t possibly provide enough ‘value-enhancing’ jobs for them all now, much less in 10-30 years when productivity will be through the roof and one person can do the work that 50 currently do.
Einstein said it: you can’t solve a problem from the same conciousness that caused it. We need some drastic new approaches, and they won’t be pretty. Can you say, “Death Panels?” I thought you could.
January 24th, 2012 at 14:42
If you had stray cats that were congregating on your porch and multiplying, and you got tired of feeding them, the solution would not have to involve killing them. You could just stop feeding them and eventually they will get hungry enough to go somewhere else.
If stray cats are smart enough to figure out how to survive when the handouts stop, one has to believe that humans would do just as well. Charities would pick up the slack for those who are truly in need, and working for those charities would be a productive activity.
The problem is not too many people; it’s too many bad liberal ideas that turn problems into bureaucracies.
January 24th, 2012 at 15:23
Your solution: If you’re tired of feeding the stray cats, stop feeding them so they’ll go away and starve to death somewhere else. You don’t have to kill them, you just let “the market” do it for you. That way you can shrug and say, “Well, it was God’s will.”
A true conservative capitalist answer. I like it. Grayson was right: “The Republican plan is, if you get sick, die quickly.”
Obviously you either didn’t read the post or you didn’t absorb the concept: “… the forward march of technology has made it very difficult for people who have traditionally had low-skill or even middle-skill occupations to contribute value.” So going elsewhere won’t help the cats, ’cause there aren’t any mice left for them to hunt.
But it’s all good as long as you aren’t inconvenienced by having to watch them die.
January 25th, 2012 at 05:05
Your solution: You have enough food for one person and that other guy doesn’t have any, so you have to split yours with him, so that each of you has half enough food for one person. That’s equality! That’s fair! That’s much better than it was before!
You can be stupid if you want to. Just don’t force us to be stupid with you.
January 25th, 2012 at 06:44
*shrug* As I said, there are too many people.
Whether we shoot the extra mouths or just let them starve on their own is the only decision we really have to make.
Talk about cats on the porch or who has enough food for one or two people is just chaff in the wind.
January 25th, 2012 at 11:27
The failure of your logic, Dennis, is that you automatically assume they will starve. Historically, that is not the case. We’re not talking about Somalians trying to survive in a desert. Liberalism creates deadbeats; it enables them to breed and multiply and even imports them from other countries. It does this under a banner of “caring”, but in fact it is exactly the opposite. If you truly care about your children, you teach them to be independent and self-sufficient. The same is true for the poor.
Technology may make it difficult for people with no skills, but that’s not a new, 21st century problem! The same thing happened during the Industrial Revolution and people were forced to adjust. And they did.
The difference between charity and government programs for the poor is that a charity is actually in contact with the individual. Libs love government programs because they can believe they’ve done their bit for the poor without actually having to be soiled by contact with them. Hence it is not the conservatives who are avoiding the “inconvenience”; it is the liberals.