What causes unemployment?

[Ideologue]

Capital, in the sense of means of production, is not some zero-sum fund.

That's true, but it doesn't alter the fallaciousness of your neo-luddite argument.

Now, that's an unfair characterization.  I don't oppose displacement of workers or the increased automation of the economy; quite the contrary.  The elimination of drudgery is or should be the principal goal of human endeavor.

Consider that in many traditional subsistence-type economies, where there is little or no mecahnisation, it is common for there to be significant levels of under-employment.  The reason for that is that these economies are not capable of producing economic surplus and thus there is a lack of effective demand that would induce people to work more.

It is not like there is some shortage of productive or societally useful tasks that would require some human labor to perform.   For example, just today there are two threads here on languish that mention in some way critical shortages in the provisions of vital legal services and yet there is also the recognition that there is unemployment and underemployment of many individual lawyers, including the very one posting the above.  This state of affairs does not arise because lexis has invented mechanized attorneys, but because our economic system is not presently allocating resources in such a way that would finance such employment.

I agree, but that doesn't really address my argument, which is a somewhat specualtive, futurist one.  Now you can counterargue that on this basis it is not an important argument, but long-term planning dictates taking into account future technological advances which we can reasonably foresee coming (and, indeed, which are presently accumulating)

In general technological advancement has permitted--not without dislocation--increased individual productivity and reallocation of labor into more productive endeavors, and this has been on balance a very good thing.  But it's not ridiculous to expect that at some point productivity per capita will be so vast as to reduce demand to no more than a few ten or hundred million maintainers, users, and designers of machines.

What happens to the rest of humanity when only the best and brightest are necessary and the average human, let alone the below average human, has not the intellectual capacity to contribute meaningfully?  And even that is not the end of it, as no physical law dictates that a machine cannot replicate my abilities--or even yours.  Although I suspect the legal profession will be amongst the last to become mostly automated, the idea that human skills are irreplaceable strikes me as fundamentally incorrect.

But in the nearer term, take your average McDonald's or Wal-Mart, and cut staffing needs by 90%.  Where do they go?  When you can answer that question, I will consider the argument refuted.  But I do not believe it is instructive to rely on the example of the fields emptying into the cities.  There is no sector to absorb the redundant.

[Iormlund]

Here's a question that I brought up but was mostly ignored:

Will there always be a place for human labor, including intellectual labor, in the economy?

Of course. There will also always be jobs for unskilled humans. That's because machines are expensive. In one of our manufacturing locations they considered to install a fancy logistics system iwth conveyor belts and computer control at the factory hall ceiling that would transport parts directly to the assembly line. However, they figured out that it is cheaper to pay unskilled laborers to just transport the parts to the assembly line with forklifts and pallet jacks and thus didn't install the logistics system. And you don't need to be a genius to operate a pallet jack.

That reminds me of a meeting with a senior manager at a fairly big factory over here. We were presenting a proven system to monitor the assembly lines that would allow significant reduction in expenses. As we explained what it was, how it worked and how much it would cost, the guy said: 'Fuck that. We could just hire a dozen interns to do that'. At zero cost, I might add. Needless to say, the project didn't come to fruition.

[Drakken]

The problem is that the chances to be a "big time" anything are pretty low these days. Is there any field people wishing to make a lot of money really ought to be exploring?

Perhaps some sort of entrepreneurship in the skilled trades - say, becomming a plumber or electrician, with the goal of running a firm of plumbers or electricians. I dunno.

That's pretty much the way I settled for. I return to professional high school next year to learn plumbery with that exact plan in mind : working a few years to create myself a clientele and experience, and build my own business. I do it because I find it inconceivable that passed 30, after years of service, I would still be payed below the Canadian or even Quebec's average net salary. So I go where the money is, even if it means doing manual labor. I consider my years of university a few years wasted of my youth that led nowhere but to idle dreams, and my diploma a useless piece of paper.

Construction is the only sector with currently a massive demand for workers and actually paying bigger money for it : First year of apprenticeship would pay me 50% more of my actual salary - after five years of service.

I don't agree with CC - our generation is getting shafed big time and the promise that openings would come as the baby boomers weed themselves off toward retirement ended up untrue : either they stay or their job get closed by attrition. When a big chunk of your age bracket literally begs to work for free as interns, something's utterly wrong. It is white-collar employment paid way, way below minimum wage or fruit-handling Mexican labor. So what people perceive as "entitlement" is simply asking to be given decent wage to live, create a family, and finance a house through mortgage like their parents did.

[garbon]

Drakken is a weird dude.

[Drakken]

Drakken is a weird dude.

How is it weird to want to make more money in another sector, for my labour, when my sector is paying me so low that I cannot even afford to found a family and buy a house even together with my life partner's salary? Geez, it's not choosing whether I'll buy this game or that game. It's actually a life decision, you know, one you take when you want to better your life and situation?

And I don't see my fellow students begging to be taken as free interns for a two-month contract that they'll know will never lead to permanent employment, and collecting such "valuable experience" on their resume, as a sign of a healthy employment world.

[Grey Fox]

You a lawyer Drak?

[Drakken]

You a lawyer Drak?

I data processing after collection for an opinion research company, so I do a mix of programming (SPSS and Quantum), statistics, and client management service. I had thought of going to law school, but I finally decided it wasn't a cost-effective venue for the next few years, for the reasons CC and Malthus discussed early in the thread.

I like the job itself, it's just a dead-end job in the corporate work with bad pay for the level of specialization it requests. And it's certainly not a job I study to perform, I was just lucky to have found entrance in that company and I was offered the position with a decent raise.

[Grey Fox]

How would you call that field?

[Drakken]

How would you call that field?

Low-level, white-collar professional job. It's not really a field, it's a corporate job in a corporation. What I do, another monkey could learn it and be effective after a few weeks and expect the same dead-end.

But when I got offered that at 26, it was like the Eldorado. I was lucky not to go through what quite a few of my fellow students end up doing : welfare or being cashier in stores or fast food joints.

[garbon]

You a lawyer Drak?

I data processing after collection for an opinion research company, so I do a mix of programming (SPSS and Quantum), statistics, and client management service. I had thought of going to law school, but I finally decided it wasn't a cost-effective venue for the next few years, for the reasons CC and Malthus discussed early in the thread.

I like the job itself, it's just a dead-end job in the corporate work with bad pay for the level of specialization it requests. And it's certainly not a job I study to perform, I was just lucky to have found entrance in that company and I was offered the position with a decent raise.

Why not that flip that into being an analyst/researcher? Already knowing the nitty gritty of data can't but help with the interpretation side of things.

[Grey Fox]

How would you call that field?

Low-level, white-collar professional job. It's not really a field, it's a corporate job in a corporation. What I do, another monkey could learn it and be effective after a few weeks and expect the same dead-end.

eh, I know that pain. QA isn't usually a good paying jobs.

[Iormlund]

But in the nearer term, take your average McDonald's or Wal-Mart, and cut staffing needs by 90%.  Where do they go?  When you can answer that question, I will consider the argument refuted.  But I do not believe it is instructive to rely on the example of the fields emptying into the cities.  There is no sector to absorb the redundant.

I can see two possible futures once that happens: either humans are enhanced so that everyone can actually contribute with creative tasks, or a small elite will provide panem et circenses for large class of unemployed citizens.

[Drakken]

Why not that flip that into being an analyst/researcher? Already knowing the nitty gritty of data can't but help with the interpretation side of things.

Because it's not? Researchers/analysts are the "manager" type Grallon was talking about. A lot of chiefs over very few Indians, so I can relate to his situation. They recruit laterally and externally when openings come, either from MBAs or their networks of contact, rather than promote from bottom-up, which contribute to my barren vision for a promotion or more responsabilities.

eh, I know that pain. QA isn't usually a good paying jobs.

It's not QA. Client service wouldn't be doing a thing without the tables I create and the analysis I provide from the data they collect. After all, all the polls and market survey reports you read in the papers are from the tables people like me operationalize from the data collected in their polls.

They even attempted to put in my SMART objectives to take a Statistics class in college, so that I may use this knowledge while being payed $30K/yearly. Needless to say, I refused that objective as not being cost-effective (and the fact that it would be on my free time, and not on work time), and my bosses relented.

Like I said, it's a good job and if it weren't acorporate dead-end, I would stay, peddle my ware, and play the corporate political game. I just don't see an opening in the foreseeable future and I am not interested in being treated as an IT dork for another five years, so I prefer completely change sector, and aim to become my own boss.

[Grey Fox]

Why not that flip that into being an analyst/researcher? Already knowing the nitty gritty of data can't but help with the interpretation side of things.

Because it's not? Researchers/analysts are the "manager" type Grallon was talking about. A lot of chiefs over very few Indians, so I can relate to his situation. They recruit laterally and externally when openings come, either from MBAs or their networks of contact, rather than promote from bottom-up, which contribute to my barren vision for a promotion or more responsabilities.

eh, I know that pain. QA isn't usually a good paying jobs.

It's not QA. Client service wouldn't be doing a thing without the tables I create and the analysis I provide from the data they collect. After all, all the polls and market survey reports you read in the papers are from the tables people like me operationalize from the data collected in their polls.

They even attempted to put in my SMART objectives to take a Statistics class in college, so that I may use this knowledge while being payed $30K/yearly. Needless to say, I refused that objective as not being cost-effective (and the fact that it would be on my free time, and not on work time), and my bosses relented.

Like I said, it's a good job and if it weren't acorporate dead-end, I would stay, peddle my ware, and play the corporate political game. I just don't see an opening in the foreseeable future and I am not interested in being treated as an IT dork for another five years, so I prefer completely change sector, and aim to become my own boss.

Oh I know, QA is what I do.

[garbon]

Because it's not? Researchers/analysts are the "manager" type Grallon was talking about. A lot of chiefs over very few Indians, so I can relate to his situation. They recruit laterally and externally when openings come, rather than promote from bottom-up.

I wonder if this is a Quebec thing then. I know plenty of people who did pure data processing and then switched to client service.  I, myself, began on the client service side (did minor analysis, stats were outsourced) but I think many a company would benefit from researchers/analysts who were more data focused - and hence why they got brought up here and there when they apply for such positions.