# Why do people insist that the market will produce new jobs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 15, 2008, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-insist-that-the-market-will-produce-new-jobs/477216 "2008-12-15T06:17:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 124
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-insist-that-the-market-will-produce-new-jobs/477216/124 "2008-12-16T23:44:49Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > It seems to me that the OP is seeing doom and gloom in automation, as people have done for the past 200 years. However, most of those responding to him seem to say it won’t be a problem this time since it has never been a problem in the past, which doesn’t reassure me very much. And these side discussions on how the OP is wrong wrong wrong so long as one guy in Santa Clara is still designing processors is just silly. Thank you. > [@](#): > > The history of automation has been moving jobs up the skill chain. Farm automation moved people from grunt labor in the fields to somewhat more skilled labor in factories. Farming is high tech now, but it didn’t used to be. Factory automation moved people into design and engineering and support of more complex tools. We automated the hands, and made the brain more valuable, which improved the standard of living since brains are very productive. But the only place to go when we automate (or outsource) brain jobs is to service jobs which at the moment can’t be automated. These don’t increase productivity like brain jobs do, so they don’t come with big paychecks. (Except for jobs like doctors and lawyers.) Don’t have much to add to this, other than it’s nice to reply to someone who is actually thinking about the subject instead of reciting dogma. The problem I see with increasing the necessary skill level of jobs is that, like it or not, some folks just plain aren’t suited for high skill jobs. The local Wendy’s employs a kid with Down’s Syndrome to keep the dining room clean. He does a great job and does not seem to be bored with the simple work. When, not if, Wendy’s deploys a robot to handle the job of keeping the dining room clean, what work will he be suited for? Presumably he’s getting at least minimum wage, unless there is some program that allows Wendy’s to employ him at a lower one. > [@](#): > > The problem isn’t really productivity, since automation and finding low cost suppliers improves productivity. The problem is how to funnel the benefits of productivity to the average consumer. That’s what the current administration didn’t do, and what Obama is clearly intending in his evil “income redistribution” plan. > Maybe Mack Reynolds had it right. If we stop calling it welfare, and give everyone stock paying dividends, the conservatives will be happy. Perhaps we should send the collected work of Mack Reynolds to Congress. Reynolds, for you non-sfers, was a socialist who the right wing John Campbell loved. Many of his stories were set in a society where many jobs were automated out of existence. I’ll have to read his stuff. Is it still in print? The world we’re discussing can wind up as either a utopia or a distopia. I hope for the former, but I fear the latter. If we “follow the money”, I see no reason to believe that business owners have any interest in either employing any more than the bare minimum number of people, or making life better for anyone but themselves. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-insist-that-the-market-will-produce-new-jobs/477216)._