From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 07 2003 - 15:33:46 MDT
On Sun, Apr 06, 2003 at 09:54:14PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
> 1. Higher minimum wage does not eliminate the existence of
> jobs due to advances in technology.
Well, it doesn't. Not magically. Just because there's high compensation and
thus potential demand for automation doesn't mean the technology can actually
automate. Otherwise we could get rid of those $6million CEOs or $60,000
computer programmers. We can't; no reason to assume that $10,000 janitors are
automatable away either.
> 4. Saving money, especially by the rich, has no salutary
> side-effects.
I think no salutatry effects is stronger than is needed here. It just has to
be less salutary than giving more money to the workers.
> 2. There is no supply and demand relationship affecting the
> value of worker efforts, (and hence their retainability).
Demand can be relatively inelastic. Drugs, food, medicine, janitorial needs
of large corporations... at some wage rate this may break down (or cause a
black market), but minimum wage may be effective below that rate.
> 3. Jobs are givens: in black and white terms, society needs
> to perform and will perform a job X, or it will not.
> 5. The number of employers and number of jobs are fixed.
The industry may be limited by geography (access to rivers or hydropower in
old times; farms now -- only so much top quality farmland). Other industries
have various barriers to entry -- at one extreme, auditing firms are based at
least as much on reputation for honesty as actual skill, and starting one up
will be hard.
Someone said it was wrong to assume workers couldn't turn into entrepreneurs.
True, in some sense, but how many minimum-wage workers will be starting up
high-starting-capital businesses?
In general, I'd say there are quite a lot of jobs which are as yet highly
resistant to automation and for which demand is fairly strong, such that up to
some point it's plausible people will just shell out more money to get the job
done. Janitorial work. Picking delicate agricultural products. Probably
others. Also note that your original assumptions, of workers >> employers and
workers > # of jobs are kind of true -- first one definitely (remember,
workers can't magically turn into employers at will, there are capital
(including knowledge) and language and connection barriers) and the second one
somewhat, but more so when considering immigration and the vast pool of cheap
labor out in the world.
-xx- Damien X-)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Apr 07 2003 - 15:40:19 MDT