Back After a Long Spring Hiatus; Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week; Aspirationally an hour...
"Although Noah has not yet read Acemoglu & Johnson’s Power & Progress, he nevertheless has OPINIONS!"
In a graduate seminar on modern political theory, I once came to class without having done the reading. I argued vociferously (and, in retrospect, probably wrongly) for most of the class on a given point. Near the end of the class it came out that I hadn't, uh, read the material. The professor looked at me and said "Congratulations Mr. Field. You're the best undergraduate bullshitter I know."
The idea that 1960 was a good era for workers and people in general needs to be qualified by noting that it was a good era IF YOU LIVED IN THE UNITED STATES. Africa, China, many parts of South America, etc. were miserable places to live. Globalization helped the third world at the expense of the Amercian working class.
Well, for one thing we might first remove any wedges between the cost faced by an employer and the income received by the worker, things like employer "provided" health insurance, and (even inadequately) financing SS/Medicare with a wage tax. We might also maintain a high investment, low mis-regulation, high growth economy in which it is easier for workers displaced from one kind of job (it happens!) to find an even better one somewhere else. We might also have a more generous safety net (especially unemployment benefits) to make job losses (transitions) a little less dire. And IF we knew how to do it -- I don't think we yet do -- we could subsidize the replacement of old displaced human capital with new and improved human capital. Old boring neo-liberal stuff.
Maybe I'm being ungenerous but I think a lot of the "direct technology" talk is just favoring allowing new technologies to run while signaling "concern" for workers.
If we see artificial general intelligence in the next 20 years, I wonder where unskilled labor can fit into this new economy, and still not diminish the human experience.
"Although Noah has not yet read Acemoglu & Johnson’s Power & Progress, he nevertheless has OPINIONS!"
In a graduate seminar on modern political theory, I once came to class without having done the reading. I argued vociferously (and, in retrospect, probably wrongly) for most of the class on a given point. Near the end of the class it came out that I hadn't, uh, read the material. The professor looked at me and said "Congratulations Mr. Field. You're the best undergraduate bullshitter I know."
For some reason I thought of this today.
The idea that 1960 was a good era for workers and people in general needs to be qualified by noting that it was a good era IF YOU LIVED IN THE UNITED STATES. Africa, China, many parts of South America, etc. were miserable places to live. Globalization helped the third world at the expense of the Amercian working class.
Well, for one thing we might first remove any wedges between the cost faced by an employer and the income received by the worker, things like employer "provided" health insurance, and (even inadequately) financing SS/Medicare with a wage tax. We might also maintain a high investment, low mis-regulation, high growth economy in which it is easier for workers displaced from one kind of job (it happens!) to find an even better one somewhere else. We might also have a more generous safety net (especially unemployment benefits) to make job losses (transitions) a little less dire. And IF we knew how to do it -- I don't think we yet do -- we could subsidize the replacement of old displaced human capital with new and improved human capital. Old boring neo-liberal stuff.
Maybe I'm being ungenerous but I think a lot of the "direct technology" talk is just favoring allowing new technologies to run while signaling "concern" for workers.
If we see artificial general intelligence in the next 20 years, I wonder where unskilled labor can fit into this new economy, and still not diminish the human experience.