new Bloggingheads with Reihan and Rortybomb
I’m happy to say that a favorite of mine, Rortybomb– aka Mike Konczal (whose real name I didn’t know until I saw this)– has made his Bloggingheads debut, and alongside the always brilliant Reihan, to boot. Rortybomb writes with a real clarity about very complicated subjects, and used to comment at my old digs.
In the above excerpt, Mike and Reihan talk about something that, frankly, haunts me, the specter of permanent high American unemployment. I really do think that at least minimally compensating employment is an absolutely essential element of the American social contract, and I deeply worry about the kind of political consequences of a European-style permanent high unemployment rate without the attendant European social programs. Something about basic economics that I’ve never understood is why it’s necessarily the case that increased innovation won’t simply erode the necessary number of jobs in society. I’m not smart enough to know what’s going to happen, so it’s nice to listen to two smarter people consider the issue.
I guess it depends on what you define as a “necessary” job. If “necessary” means involved with supplying the basic necessity of life, then I think it’s fair to say that most of the jobs in a modern economy are not “necessary.” If instead you are simply asking how will everyone be employed and make a living, you need look no further than the simple observation that resources are limited but human desires are not. As long as people continue to want things that they don’t have, there will be other people employed in doing their best to provide for them.Report
Increasing innovation could quite easily reduce the number of hours worked for the same number of workers. Unfortunately, historic advances in productivity have been used to remove workers and increase profit. A robust trade union movement can (and regionally has) negotiated for a slice of innovation efficiency. We are in the historic situation that workers are replace and positions eliminated. This is not a necessary outcome of innovation, only the most likely.Report