Jim,
In your concluding paragraphs below you make a distinction between
two kinds of technological unemployment. But it is a distinction
without a difference. Both put people out of work and both can be
addressed through cutting hours of work.
When rivet heaters lost employment when reliable bolts and welding
displaced them, their skills were no longer, or at least less useful.
(And rivet heating was a skill.) But they could find other work if
hours were cut. Actually a riveting gang included multiple workers --
all of whom could move on to something else if there was work. And
there could be work if some of the labor supply were reduced through
cutting hours.
Gene Coyle
On Aug 3, 2009, at 6:38 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
Sandwichman quoted:
From a comment on a US News and World Report blog from Joseph
DeLassus of MO, July 14, 2009:
"Not much is said these days about technological unemployment."
What _is_ this kind of unemployment? No-one can have an intelligent
conversation without defining terms. Of course, as with any concept,
the definition is a matter of convention. So I did a short search:
from answers.com: technological unemployment is:
Unemployment resulting from the application of new technology,
either by eliminating jobs or by changing the nature of work so
that those who had performed the work no longer have applicable
skills to do so.<
from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1153/is_5_125/
ai_91808044/:>The
displacement of workers by advancing technology<
(Technological unemployment. - Inventing ourselves out of jobs?
America's debate over technological unemployment, 1929-1981 - book
review _Monthly Labor Review_, May, 2002 by Horst Brand)
from the Wiktionary: It's >Unemployment caused by the replacement of
workers by machines or artificial intelligence technology.<
from the Wikipedia: >Much technological unemployment (e.g. due to the
replacement of workers by machines) might be counted as structural
unemployment. Alternatively, technological unemployment might refer to
the way in which steady increases in labor productivity mean that
fewer workers are needed to produce the same level of output every
year.<
There seems to be a consensus that there are two types of this kind of
unemployment. The first refers to the technology-driven rise in the
productivity of an average hour of labor-power hired
(inflation-corrected salable output per hour of average labor-power)
compared to the demand for the product. By definition, if the quantity
of real salable output demanded rises more slowly than labor
productivity (as defined here), then the number of hours of
labor-power hired will fall absolutely. If the demand grows faster
than that, but not fast enough, the quantity of hours of labor-power
hired would fall relative to the (labor force)*(the per-worker number
of hours currently hired). This can show up either as (1) a fall in
the number of people hired or (2) a fall in the hours of labor-power
per person hired or (3) a combination of both.
The second type of technological unemployment involves the obsoleting
of existing skills by changes in technology, as when traditional movie
cartoonists lost jobs due to computer-generated animation. (This is
the kind of unemployment first noticed on a large scale during the
British "industrial revolution.") This can show up as (1) overt
unemployment or (2) underemployment (the traditional cartoonists being
employed at jobs below their abilities, such as working at McDonalds)
or (3) a combination of both.
In this case, there's no obvious way that we could cut people's hours
in order reduce the number of workers fired in a capitalist system --
unless the traditional cartoonists suffer from reduced wages enough
that Disney _et al_ are willing to hire the traditional ones instead
of the ones doing computer-generated animation. Even then, with 3-D
movies being the "hot item" in Tinseltown, the traditional cartoonists
seem to be up against the wall. What's needed is some sort of training
program or helping the traditional cartoonists find jobs up to their
abilities in other fields.
Tom also wrote that:
I remain in awe of the ability of "progressive economists" to talk
about unemployment and not mention the elephant in the room [i.e.,
technological unemployment?] <
I guess I'm one of those nefarious "progressive" economists. There: I
talked about the pachyderm in pen-l. In fact, I wrote a lot of the
Wikipedia entry on types of unemployment. Or maybe I misidentified the
nature of the proboscidean creature infesting our quarters.
is that enough?
--
Jim Devine / "All science would be superfluous if the form of
appearance of things directly coincided with their essence." -- KM
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