Luddites may have faded out early in the 1800's, but their anti-advancement, machine-smashing mindset is still very much alive and well today.

More Caplan! More Caplan I say! Good work. Looking forward to the series.

This Econ Chronicles series is excellent.

Horses actually have about 30 horse power. The horsepower measurement of automobiles includes the weight of the vehicle itself when determining how much it can pull, but the measurement for horses does not.

@lessemo

10 жыл бұрын

That's a lot of horses in one horse!

@berin99

10 жыл бұрын

Can that horse output 30 horsepower 24/7? Or would you need 30 horses, trading off every 5 minutes, to sustain that level of output?

I was at the store the other day and was amazed at the size, scope, and variety found in the frozen food aisle. You can buy literally a score of precooked meals, place them in the nuker, heat it for five or so minutes, and boom: you have yourself a relatively nutritious, fairly tasty, and very speedy warm meal to satiate your hunger. I understand that fresh food is better and more important, but the way that technology has made the way we eat so efficient is captivating.

Hey what is that glorious music piece associated with this video?

Man, you guys make me think. Great video.

I think just about everyone would agree that it's good to make real progress, but people get protectionist when they see transition/retooling costs. Advancement could cause people to start over at the bottom of the totem pole in a new line of work, right? Then they'd have to bear the costs of retraining and acquiring years of work experience before they're once again skilled, productive workers. When you throw in all kinds of what-ifs in regard to a person's circumstances, such as age, health, obligations, wealth, etc., the displacement from advancement might be excruciating. I'd love to know what Caplan has to say about this. I'd appreciate any other commenter's thoughts as well.

@Wrecksy

10 жыл бұрын

While some people are definitely affected by their job becoming obsolete, the net benefit to everyone as a whole is positive. If a manufacturer automates and lays off some employees, the result may be that some people have to find a new job, but the bigger result is that the manufacturing cost, and thus, the cost of the product to everyone is lowered.

@bluo88

10 жыл бұрын

Wrecks Yes, and I believe improvements should be welcomed (I also support complete free trade). I'm just wondering if the best answer we have for people affected by displacement/obsolescence is "too bad. Just do your best to get another line of work."

@Wrecksy

10 жыл бұрын

bluo88 'We' who? Why should the answer involve society of Government or "we" doing something about it. I think the responsibility lies with the person who wants to make money, not "we". At what point in history did we all quit being responsible for ourselves and expect everything to be provided for us?

@bluo88

10 жыл бұрын

Wrecks I think you're reading too much into the "we" part, so just disregard it. I'm not trying to say other people somehow owe people negatively affected by technological improvement, a change of trade conditions, or some other natural consequence of free trade or economic advancement. I think it's better if I give a concrete example. Imagine the American steel industry losing to Japanese competition. Consequentially, American steel companies are less profitable and lay off some workers to reduce costs. The laid off workers might not know how to do anything else and may need to suffer an economic setback before they're as well off as they were working in steel. For example, they could try to move to another trade like carpentry, but if they don't know much about it, they'll be at a low position again and have to spend time developing new skills before they're doing as well for themselves as before. Now, what's the best thing to do from the standpoint of public policy? I suspect the overall best answer is that we just need to accept that displacements happen as economic conditions change and policies shouldn't burden people any more than necessary so that people can transition to other kinds of work as painlessly as possible.

@Wrecksy

10 жыл бұрын

bluo88 I wouldn't argue with that.

Please, can someone show this video on our public schools?

I love these videos :)

Completely correct, I do not see how people do not understand this, coming from the UK where legislation is massive.

@steptb

7 жыл бұрын

UK labor laws aren't massive at all. try Sweden, Germany, France or Italy.

The make-work bias results from the structure of employment itself: while a society will become richer overall with more innovations, each innovation disrupts current jobs. People relying on those jobs for income are, of course, going to be concerned or afraid. I think just about all reasonable people are in support of automation itself; what they disagree on is how to handle the side effects, and that's starting to become a widespread concern these days, with various solutions proposed. See CGP Grey's video 'Humans Need Not Apply' for information of how automation is going. So, you have people proposing basic income, negative income tax, letting the market sort things out, transition to socialism...and it gets heated because economics is hard.

Brilliant!

You can tell how better our "ways of growing food, fertilizing, seeds, and energy sources" are by how 'healthy' our population is. We are sooo advanced, just look at our belt lines.

Can we please apply these principles to out of control institutions and government ?

Better seeds, better machines, the advent of soybean and sodium benzoate...Lol.

government intervention in economics tends to be for the worse 95% of the time.

lol that ending

First the first 3 months, subsidies is equal to 40% of nominal wage rebated provided that the employer has hired such a person for a length of period. For the next 3 months, subsidies is equal to 35% of nominal wage. For the next 6 months, subsidies is equal to 30% of nominal wage. For the next 6 months, subsidies is equal to 25% of nominal wage. For the last 6 months, subsidies is equal to 20% of nominal wage.

'Baron Charles Dupin, said to be the torch of learning among the peerage in the science of economics, accuses the railroads of injuring navigation; and it is certainly natural for a swifter conveyance to lessen the use of a comparatively less efficient one. But railroads can harm shipping only by taking away its business; they can take away its business only by doing the job of transportation more cheaply; and they can transport goods more cheaply only by lowering the ratio of the effort applied to the result obtained, since this is precisely what constitutes low cost. Thus, when Baron Dupin deplores this diminution in the labor employed to obtain a given result, he is following the doctrine of Sisyphism. Logically, since he prefers the ship to the train, he ought to prefer the wagon to the ship, the packsaddle to the wagon, and the basket to every other known means of transport, for it is the one that demands the most labor for the least result.' - Frédéric Bastiat, 'Economic Sophisms'

Even if 500 people go out of work, the fact that millions have gained better/advanced technology, is a fact of net economic benefit superior to the real wages of such workers. If we channel those taxes from those products/services of increased consumption to training programs for businesses in new fields, we can accelerate progress and avoid no/low-income individuals from lack of valuable skills.

Ah yes. What is unseen versus what is seen. Many people haven't considered it.

I heard this story from some video: An American businessman goes to communist China. A governor in china takes the American to a desert area where many people are digging dirt with shovels, and tells the American "we are building a new underground system here". The businessman asks "why not use tractors to dig instead of people? You will finish the work way faster if you did" to which the governor replies "we are creating jobs for people". Then the businessman says " if it is jobs you want to make, take away their shovels, and give them spoons"

On a macro scale, it's valid. However one individual who lost his job doesn't give a crap about the tractor feeds the town faster. What really drives this bias is self-interest.

Two things. Most unemployment is not caused by innovation, and redundancy/unproductivity is a common cause.

For n individuals who suffer from cyclical unemployment, why not use the net benefit of increased consumption from cheaper goods/services/efficiency gains (taxes) to incentivize training programs for employers to hire [such people] by lowering the cost of search/employment activities if labour laws are more laxed/lenient.

One thing to note is that the importance of inventions seems to be declining, and the technological sophistication must increase constantly simply for the invention to have an impact. Compare an iPhone to a 19th century invention like a car. The iPhone clearly has more advanced technology; but the car made more of a difference to people, and to history. Even when it comes to medical invention- most amazing new treatments make only a small dent in the general life expectancy, compared to antibiotics or modern understanding of germs which added many years. Many new inventions on the market seem to fill wants rather than needs. Either that, or they create their own needs like a cellphone. These observations may not directly answer what the video is saying, but they are something to think about.

The ultimate goal is to reach a point where unemployment is 100%, but yet we're all still fed and happy. That's a utopia, that will only be possible if we can push technology far enough to make it so. Until then, we need the most productive and efficient jobs to get there. It's easy to get 0% unemployment. It's hard to do so in a way that benefits society.

Progress is great and all, but there wasn't as much people on the planet back then than there is now. And also no job means no bread on the table. No bread on the table means no progression.

Serious question: Does "good for society" equal "good for everyone?" Hypothetically speaking, farmer John loses his job to an automated process. Society as a whole benefits since they still have the same output from the automated process, without the cost of paying John. But John is (at least right this moment) worse off. He has no job, less self-worth, and in his desperation becomes more likely to turn to crime to put food on the table. So what is the solution? Is the answer a steadily increasing welfare state, a-la Vonnegut's Player Piano?

@edwaggonersr.7446

10 жыл бұрын

We can't determine policy based upon the temporary difficulties suffered by a small number of citizens. People have been forced by change to find other productive means of support for thousands of years. John may have to work two jobs for a while, spend down his savings, sell his farm, move into a smaller house, sell his second car, guns, fishing boat, dirt bike and etc... So no, the answer is not a steady increase in the welfare state.

@Monsuco

10 жыл бұрын

The solution is for farmer John to get a different job. Markets are here to help consumers get the best product from the best provider. If farmer John isn't the best, most efficient provider, he *should* fail and if he's sheltered from failure, it's the consumer who suffers from having to buy an inferior or more expensive product. The goal of market competition is to bring the consumer what they want better than anyone else. Apple's iPhone and the various Android vendors put Palm out of business. I used to use a Palm Pilot and had a Centro after that. While it was good a few years ago, their products were *vastly* inferior to what today's smartphones offer. It's not even close. Yeah, a lot of Palm programmers lost their jobs, but the alternative is government perpetually providing corporate welfare to them and subsidizing a product nobody wants.

The make-work bias is why a basic income scheme for every citizen, funded through the capture of economic rent, would be a very good idea. It would decouple work from income, by allowing for a minimum standard of living whether or not work is available, and hence reduce the resistance to job losses. Workers losing their jobs that face nothing but pitiful and degrading welfare systems (if anything) will be more resistant to changes in the labor force that improve the economy as a whole and promote progress than workers who upon losing their jobs, may still live comfortably until they retrain for a new job, or even start their own business in a growing sector of the economy. A steady flow of income would ensure that more people have sufficient resources to start a business, and have sufficient resources to ride out the early stages of a small business where profits are low and costs are high. A basic income would also mean that unavoidable failure is not catastrophic; a person with a failed business could still support themselves and, when ready, give business another go, using the lessons they have learned from their mistakes. A basic income would not only make labor force transition easier, but increase the demand for labor as well (from small business), maintaining plentiful work and high wages in the face of structural economic change. However, a basic income funded by taxes on production (eg. income taxes, sales taxes, company taxes) would be a bad idea. Implement charges on the holding of land, the holding of money, the emission of pollution, and the extraction of natural resources, and use the funds to COMPLETELY ELIMINATE income taxes, sales taxes, company taxes and all other taxes on production and hard work. Once the economy has grown sufficiently to massively increase the revenue gained from the alternative income sources based on economic rent that I have listed previously, this surplus may be distributed to every citizen, to increase the welfare of each individual without impinging on the liberty on any other individual.

While no doubt society may be $8,000 poorer due to this training program per person, it is more worthwhile than having the person get a $30,000 + salary while doing nothing productive / of use / valued skill. And this subsidy can decrease with increased proportion to skills / experience gain within an industry for a particular person, making the net benefit very worthwhile.

Ya know what we need? Space elevators. That'll make lots of progress.

How does this advice help unemployed economists?

You could legally consider nose-picking a job. It's a guaranteed success as unemployment will virtually disappear.

Instead of employment insurance, you can say, hey "business", if you hire this worker we will subsidize X$ of wages until he or she gains sufficient value of skills over 2 years thereby giving you an overall lower cost of operations and giving the person the skills needed to be more productive.

Well sometimes the government needs to step up on its research IMO. Heres what new technology will hold: 1.) Moving 3D printers - Instead of 3D printers being fixed in place, they will move around to print things in 3D allowing large objects like houses to be printed anywhere. The 3D printers will also print other 3D printers causing exponential increase in objects and houses this will demonitize construction. 2.) Said moving 3D printers will create windmills and lenses to demonitize energy 3.) Remote-controlled robots: Good brain computer interfaces will allow people to control computers and robots remotely very well. This allows people to live in somewheer cheap like Vietnam while working in the US. This will make labor much much cheaper. 4.) AI will take over jobs like lifting things, health checkups, education, since exponential increases in computer vision, language decoding 5.) The government may need to impose a 20 hour work week hmm

I would be hesitant to use the word progress, because it's too close too progressive. I would rather use the word advance.

@jorgancrath2885

10 жыл бұрын

I actually think we need to end the absurd idea that the left can brand itself with the word progress.

@TOASTEngineer

10 жыл бұрын

Jorg Ancrath That's part of my favorite definition of "convervative"; conservatives are all for progress, but they prefer to make sure it's actually progress that they're making.

@biomerl

10 жыл бұрын

Jorg Ancrath I think we need to end the absurd idea that either the left or the right should be able to brand themselves with any positive thing. Capitalism has failings, we can't let people starve when jobs dry up, else people will be voting to support the regulations mentioned above. Secondly, letting people starve is inhumane. It takes people sitting bored to make new industries. Starving people aren't bored or making new industries. However, we can't be supporting the labor regulation laws, for the reasons mentioned in the video. It's something that needs moderation and balance, not left or right.

@nustada

10 жыл бұрын

biomerl "we can't let people starve when jobs dry up," Yes we can, in a free market, you pull your weight or rely on charity. Hunger is a good motivator. "else people will be voting" That is a failure of society having government, not capitalism. "letting people starve is inhumane." Not categorically, and not always obviously. For example, food aid programs to the third world, increases mass starvation. Because it disincentives the profit potential for developing local resources, making them entirely reliant on the whims of criminal politicians.

@biomerl

10 жыл бұрын

nustada "you pull your weight or rely on charity" What happens when there stops being weight to be pulled? When resources are the limit rather than the amount of work that can be done, and when a single inventor can spawn an industry through manufacturing with zero people required to refine and tune the process. Industrialization made more jobs because it used previously un-usable resources and created jobs for the human mind, not the body. With the advent of computers, self-service, etc, we no longer can rely on our minds to keep the majority unemployed. So how do these people work for food? There will be no work to be done, aside trading the same three cents back and forth, that is. And that's not an economy at all. Letting people starve prevents them from becoming those inventors that make new ideas. We have two choices. We either allow the "rich one percent" to continue automating, to continue turning the economy into one giant investment bubble, where most continue to work in consumer jobs like mc-donalds or Wal-mart. Or we implement some system to pull the money back down from the top, where it will continue to flow, and allow the population to have the security and wealth to create their own new ideas, their own new Internets, where they will continue to have the power for their dollar to keep the economy serving them, instead of the investors.

Pearl Jam - Do the Evolution

I don't think we should stem progress at all. I work in a supermarket and I'm so fucking tired of hearing people complain about self-serve. My problem is that humanity has never faced job replacement the likes of which it's about to face in the next 100 years. As AI improves, we draw nearer and nearer to simulating the human brain but in a way that doesn't get hungry or need sleep. What happens to a society in which 100% of jobs get replaced? No new job can come along that humans will excel at because anything humans can do, robots can do better and for free. What happens to that society?

if you are the boss, productivity is always better than work. but it's not the same if you are the worker. when a work is lost due to higher productivity, the money gained doesn't go to the worker, it goes to the boss. that's the problem. we are not a socialist community, we do not distribute wealth equally.

As a psychologist I understand bias and your arguments are examples of your own self serving bias for purely libertarian economics.

Actually when the tractor comes to mind... why didnt more people just start farms instead we could all be farmers still and export the excess food ROFL

A man with a job for life, fully funded by the taxpaying public, and yet producing almost nothing of value, lecturing us on the dangers of giving people who produce nothing of value publicly funded jobs for life. Ah, that's rich.

The public sector is capable of creating more progress with less unemployment. Let's fire the capitalists.

@kunschner

9 жыл бұрын

Pasparal da Beira do Canal The public sector does less for more.

@pasparaldabeiradocanal1578

9 жыл бұрын

Kunschner That's what the capitalist establishment spends tons of money on for you to believe.

@kunschner

9 жыл бұрын

Pasparal da Beira do Canal What if the what you believe is just what the public sector pays billions for you to believe? That is a much more probable and realistic scenario. It is in fact a program currently employed by many governments. As for the matter on efficiency, this is demonstrably, factually true. For you to not see this you must either be an indoctrinated idiot or a troll.

@pasparaldabeiradocanal1578

9 жыл бұрын

Kunschner I see billions being spent to promote right-wing establishment ideology. Where are the massively funded think tanks, political advocacy groups and media outlets praising the benefits of the state sector? What you say is demonstrably, factually baloney. There is no reason to believe the private sector is inherently more efficient.

@kunschner

9 жыл бұрын

Pasparal da Beira do Canal Have you seen American television? Have you been to a western school? Have you taken a college economics course, let alone an arts course? The promotion of the state is seeping through everything the state touches. Until you come up with an argument why the state is more efficient, i'll still take every economic study on various forms of socialism, various forms of healthcare, welfare, bailouts, and the public workforce, over your pretentious nonsense.

i really dislike this attitude in America about the "takers" because that makes this even worse, in stead of putting someone on welfare or paying for their cost of living. "no way, they can't just sit around and do nothing, they need to work!!! leaches!!" so instead we pay them to do meaningless and often wasteful tasks to make them seem important. take the military as an example, people are building tanks that not even the pentagon wants, so that these tanks can sit in the California desert, rusting and rotting. id much rather be paying them to do nothing and stop wasting the resources, or paying them to do something constructive at the least, give them job training or something, pay them to clean the streets and pick up trash. even paying someone 15$ an hour to pick up trash is better then paying them to create a giant scrap yard.

Your position has a fatal flaw. Your argument makes the assumption that all progress/Increase of production is necessarily good. A few example would be nuclear power, some medicines and computers. The negative element of these items are outweighting the positive over time. Granted, society was partially unaware at the time.

@bluo88

10 жыл бұрын

What's negative about computers?

@driver8M3

10 жыл бұрын

Nobody ever said progress is always perfect. In order to progress you will certainly run into failures.

Collectively, it's valid. However for one individual who lost his job, he doesn't give a crap about about how iPads have changed peoples lives. Excess labor

You say that it isn't just handwaving. But it is just that. Certainly, we are better off if someone is able to do something productive rather than sit at a desk. But we are no better off if we just keep telling him "sorry, no jobs," or worse, "you must be lazy if you can't find a job when no jobs are available." It's not that people want to keep any *particular* job around. People are legitimately concerned about going hungry. I will always be biased in favor of me being able to eat. You can call something "progress" all you want. But if the result is that I starve, I won't like it and I won't support it. My preferred solution would be to guarantee everyone a subsistence income, whether he can find a job or not. If the jobs aren't there, the people shouldn't be starving. The combination of people starving and food rotting away in silos is just unacceptable. But the people who want slaves for workers will come up with excuses like "dependent on government." It isn't that these people object to people being dependent. They want people dependent on *them* -- so they can pull the rug out from under them at any time. It creates a slavery in all but name.

what about prostitution, that is not productive, however i still want to legalize it :p

@Trevor-Watlington

10 жыл бұрын

***** yeah good point, im not against legalizing prostitution, i was just trying to make a point then miserably defending it as i always do :p

@1426305384950384

10 жыл бұрын

Productivity is based on societies desires and wants (demand), If there is a demand for prostitution then it is productive even if the end product is simply the customers happiness.

@nustada

10 жыл бұрын

Because it is a moral hazard, in that you would have to do things worse than prostitution to prevent prostitution.

@AleksandrVasilenko93

10 жыл бұрын

How is that not productive. One person is shopping for sex, another person is offering sex. One gets what they paid for, another gets money. Both sides win.

@TheNavalAviator

8 жыл бұрын

+BringThaH33T It is productive! It satisfies a demand that is a basic need :D

This is so naive and shallow, it is difficult to take seriously.This is tilting at windmills instead of at real enemies.It is the same attitude as that of a general who boasts that he won the battle and ignores the fact that thousands of soldiers died.

@ohwhataweirdworld3680

10 жыл бұрын

Thomas Graham But what if the battle won was of the Germans in France or Poland in 1940 or in the Philipines in 1941-2? Were those soldiers providing the best for their children and grandchildren? I didn't say that your video was totally wrong, I said it was shallow - and you have just proved it. Your callous comments on the poor and the hurt and broken eggs shows that you consider yourself one of the "winners" with no regard whatsover for the "losers." Progress is not wrong, it is the standard capitalist method of achieving it that is wrong.

You talk too fast, if it wasn't for the transcript, I'd have understood 0000 of what you said.

This bias plagues the proletariat.