
Work for post-materialists  - bsaunder
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/07/unemployment-and-jobs
======
Produce
>But it would be truly pathetic if the legal/economic organisation of our
society was optimised for government surveillance and tax collection and not
for the exercise of autonomy in pursuit of a meaningful life.

Unfortunately, it already is. Bureaucracy is essentially an approach where the
'server' (government/business/whatever) forces the 'clients'
(individuals/employees) to change their behavior for the benefit of the
'server', with no clear benefit for the 'clients'. When considering it in
these terms, words like 'oppressive' seem to have some significance. After
all, the definition of the word is:

>Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or
unjust manner.

In the case of bureaucracy, the 'burdensome' and, arguably, 'unjust'
components of the definition are fitting.

Either way, it's inspiring to see these issues finally being discussed in
mainstream mediums.

~~~
klenwell
Author uses the terms government surveillance and tax collection as if they
are inherently bad things.

There are some things I want the government to watch, at both a local and
federal level. And keep in mind Oliver Wendell Holmes's Jr's adage about
taxes: they help foot the bill for civilization.

As for bureaucracy: it's a burden, but the alternative in many societies is
systematic corruption. The author writes:

 _Less obviously, but at least as importantly, we need to eliminate the insane
patchwork of regulations that keep folks from legally cutting hair for money
in a kitchen, or legally making a few bucks every now and then taxiing people
around town in a 1988 Ford Escort._

If it's an insane patchwork, perhaps. But if it's a sensible patchwork that
helps keep schools funded and slows society for a dispiriting race to the
bottom, why the hell would we want to do this?

~~~
jacoblyles
The last paragraph of the article reminds me of recent closures of kids'
lemonade stands by government inspectors:

[http://reason.com/blog/2011/07/18/lemonade-stand-
crackdown-c...](http://reason.com/blog/2011/07/18/lemonade-stand-crackdown-
conti)

There's something perverse about a government that cuts away people's autonomy
and forces everyone to rely on its handouts. I'd rather live in a society of
free people than a society that can't imagine life without the government
telling them what to do. I could do with a little less "civilization" when it
comes to closing down a 5 year old girl's lemonade stand because she didn't
prepare her pitcher in a kitchen with a 3-basin sink.

Regulations aren't made with the good of society in mind. They're usually made
by self-interested businessmen looking to keep out competition. When you
realize this, you will reach political enlightenment.

~~~
klenwell
I would say that that was a more a case of individuals police officers being
pricks. But then again perhaps they were trying to conscientiously apply the
same law with which they just harassed an immigrant street vendor on the other
side of town.

 _They're usually made by self-interested businessmen looking to keep out
competition_

Is "regulatory capture" the latest buzz phrase from Frank Luntz? Powerful
business interests are going to try to influence the regulatory process
anyway, so let's just let them run amok.

~~~
jacoblyles
>Is "regulatory capture" the latest buzz phrase from Frank Luntz?

Beats me. But you're delusional if you think regulations are created by
disinterested people contemplating the public good.

We live in a world where Fannie and Freddie debt was regulated as Tier I
capital, for goodness sake. We live in a world that requires (black) hair-
braiders to pass a 400 hour course on cutting (white) people's hair to open up
shop. We live in a world that caps San Francisco taxi cabs at approximately 1%
of the number demanded. The evidence demands at least a slightly cynical
evaluation of the regulatory state.

I don't think I've ever watched Fox News or listened to Limbaugh, by the way,
at least not for more than 5 minutes in a waiting room. You can leave the ad
hominem at home.

------
euroclydon
When writing software, the goal is often to take some task which a human once
did manually, and to partially or completely automate it. I automate as much
of my daily work-flow as possible. If I could, I would automate myself right
out of writing software all together.

I think this attitude explains why I loath the employee-employer fixed pay
relationship so much. Selling your time, day-in, day-out, to write software,
is antithetical to the very act of writing software, because, as the
developer, you haven’t automated yourself out of any future work.

~~~
Produce
I think that the reason for what you describe is essentially a paradigm
mismatch. Automation aims to reduce the amount of work while businesses have
the goal of making as much money as possible and, by extension, since money
can only be acquired by working, essentially attempt to automate as little as
possible. Personally, I think that this is an old and outdated way of living.
It's the same thing that simple biological organisms do - go towards pleasure
and away from pain. It explains why, for example, so many software houses only
look at the short term and don't take time to design decent systems which are
adaptable to change, even though they know that requirements are always
shifting. I call this approach 'dumb-lazy', whereas the automation approach is
'smart-lazy'.

~~~
billybob
"businesses have the goal of making as much money as possible and, by
extension, since money can only be acquired by working, essentially attempt to
automate as little as possible."

What? If a business gets paid $10 for something that costs them $9 to do, they
have lots of profit incentive to automate the work. If they can make it cost
$0.01 to do, they will be rolling in profit. Nearly every business understands
this.

Maybe they don't want their _clients_ to get this automation, but that's a
different question.

~~~
Produce
I completely agree with your last point and half-agree with your first one. If
we were talking about Vulcans then, yes, the optimizations would always be
implemented. My personal experience is mainly with technology companies and in
that field, at least, the optimizations are more often not implemented, even
if they will indeed save money in the long run. I think that these problems
are reflected in the general population where only a fraction of people make
investments and the vast majority tend to chase after quick profit rather than
lasting wealth. Business has a higher percentage of the latter but there is
still plenty of the former.

Edit: Also, we might be talking about slightly different situations, I'm
mainly referring to optimizations which require a time investment up front,
not 'free' ones.

------
fleitz
""The country is ready for the five day week. It is bound to come through all
industry. In adopting it ourselves, we are putting it into effect in about
fifty industries, for we are coal miners, iron miners, lumbermen, and so on.
The short week is bound to come, because without it the country will not be
able to absorb its production and stay prosperous.

"The harder we crowd business for time, the more efficient it becomes. The
more well-paid leisure workmen get, the greater become their wants. These
wants soon become needs. Well-managed business pays high wages and sells at
low prices. Its workmen have the leisure to enjoy life and the wherewithal
with which to finance that enjoyment.

"The industry of this country could not long exist if factories generally went
back to the ten hour day, because the people would not have the time to
consume the goods produced. For instance, a workman would have little use for
an automobile if he had to be in the shops from dawn until dusk. And that
would react in countless directions, for the automobile, by enabling people to
get about quickly and easily, gives them a chance to find out what is going on
in the world-which leads them to a larger life that requires more food, more
and better goods, more books, more music -- more of everything. The benefits
of travel are not confined to those who can take an expensive foreign trip.
There is more to learn in this country than there is abroad."

<http://www.worklessparty.org/timework/ford.htm>

Henry Ford knew the answer 90 years ago, the key to keeping consumption up is
to give people time to spend it. Think about it this way, a 5 day work week is
25% longer than a 4 day work week but most importantly gives people 50% more
leisure time. During this leisure time people will consume more. Transitioning
to a 4 day work week (with 5 days pay) would result in 50% more time to
consume and would eliminate unemployment almost immediately.

The best thing the government could do to solve unemployment problems is to
make a 4 day work week standard and institute overtime for the 5th day. The
reality of the situation is that large numbers of unemployed people lead to
instability in the political realm.

~~~
johnnyjustice
I think this is a fantastic idea. I was curious though what you think about
this leading to the work week getting overly short? Isnt this a step in the
direction of making the work week shorter. But nonetheless I really like this
well thoughtout comment!

------
MaxGabriel
I guess I don't read the economist blogs as much, but this article has a
_completely_ different feel from their magazine: much more laid back and
curious, if a little rambling. Its a nice change, though

~~~
wilder
I had the exact same thought.

------
purplefruit
I ironically used to work for McKinsey and was among their top performers,
then I dropped out of the rat race and have been doing just enough freelance
work to stay afloat. I didn't know there was a term for my type, but
"threshold earner" gives me a sense of legitimacy. I like it.

------
zipdog
The last paragraph ties into business models like AirBnb and UberCab: where
people just do some work or offer something and get paid for it, without a lot
of red tape and hassles and registering as a business.

It would be great if business and labor laws were streamlined to make this as
easy as possible, but its disruptive to larger corporations and current
stakeholders, so I suspect there's vested interest in trying to keep the
status quo, unfortunately. But the success of AirBnb, etc is a great sign.

~~~
dctoedt
> _It would be great if business and labor laws were streamlined to make this
> as easy as possible, but its disruptive to larger corporations and current
> stakeholders ..._

Certainly that's one part of the phenomenon. But keep in mind that regulations
exist also because there are always people who want to take in as much money
as possible while doing as little work as possible, leaving others---possibly
meaning the public---to pick up the pieces when things go wrong.

(A recent example: Wall Street investment bankers, playing the heads-we-win,
tails-the-public-loses game with bank bailouts. A recurring example:
Polluters.)

~~~
jacoblyles
It's a good thing that we have regulations so those bad things never happened.

Less snark version: who do you think writes regulation?

~~~
onemoreact
Granted that was meant as a rhetorical question, but I think regulation is
often written by young consultants because everyone tends to back the buck on
to someone else. However, when it comes to the process that actually choses
which regulation to go with that's often a range of special interests each
fighting to protect their individual pieces.

Conceder cap and trade which is clearly less efficient than simply taxing
carbon. While it might seem like a terrible idea for anyone with a few
lobbyists and the assumption that they can specify an exception for their
industry it can become a huge boon at the cost of those with less influence.

------
joelhaus
My brother likes to say that America is an adolescent, while Europe is the
adult. According to the article, it sounds like the America is growing up and
it's manifesting as a desire for job autonomy in the labor market.

However, the author misses an important link between job autonomy and the
question posed, _"What is the single best thing Washington can do to jumpstart
job creation?"_...

The fundamental reason that "job autonomy" is more viable today, is thanks to
the internet and free-flowing information. If there is one thing the
government could do to jumpstart job creation, it would be to improve the
regulatory structure surrounding the internet, bust the monopolies that are
gouging us for awful service and give incentives for startup ISP's to take
their place.

------
euroclydon
Mark Mills writing is a tad more jocular and Wall-Streety than a good HN
article's level of nuance, but he has some very good insight into American and
Chinese manufacturing and employment levels in this Forbes article:

[http://blogs.forbes.com/markpmills/2011/07/05/manufacturing-...](http://blogs.forbes.com/markpmills/2011/07/05/manufacturing-3d-printing-
and-what-china-knows-about-the-emerging-american-century/)

------
gruseom
_David Ellerman [...] argues that the employer-employee relationship is more
like the master-slave relationship than we are inclined to believe._

Me too! (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287346>) I've never heard of
David Ellerman. Anybody here read him?

------
iwwr
What is 'post-materialism'? Any relationship to post-scarcity economics?

~~~
_delirium
He appears to be using it in the sense of people whose aspirations involve
things other than material prosperity, at least past a threshhold of
"comfortable, Western middle class".

If you achieve comfortable Western middle-class, what do you aspire to past
that? A traditional and quite common aspiration is to move more into the upper
class: to make enough money to regularly travel the world, buy a large house,
buy a sports car, or perhaps even move into the higher tier of owning a beach
home in Hawaii, yacht, private jet, etc.

"Post-materialists", on the other hand, tend to be satisfied with the Western-
middle-class level of prosperity, and once they reach it start aspiring to
things like greater autonomy, fewer working hours, greater proportion of time
spent on creative endeavors, etc. I don't really like the phrase "post-
materialist" (feels judgmental), and sort of prefer Tyler Cowen's phrase
"threshold earners" (which this article also cites), as a more neutral
description of people whose monetary aspirations are to reach a comfortable
threshhold and stop there.

The article is a bit rambling, but what I take as the takeaway is that
accounting for those kinds of aspirations requires something more than just
"economic grwoth", since it's not really a linear scale of move up in the
economy --> move up further in the economy. Instead it has more to do with
flexibility of work arrangements, barriers to self-employment, etc.

~~~
ddw
If there's any positive from our current economic situation, I think it's that
some people are realizing that money doesn't bring you happiness. It can bring
you comfort, as you mention, but buying things beyond the basics isn't going
to make you happy.

The problem is that the wealthy don't accumulated funds just to buy things.
They use it for power. And increasingly in this country, money equals
political power that affects all of us. In a weird way the "good guys" should
become money hungry, but use that money in positive ways that benefit society.

~~~
klbarry
This is absolutely true. There is an article in my head about this subject
that I have been putting off writing...

~~~
dwiel
I would be very interested to see some thoughts on this subject. I go back and
forth agreeing and disagreeing with the grandparent's last paragraph.

Its easy to make yourself feel moral and just this way (and elitist and
morally superior), but I think it can also be the beginning to an easy
loophole around "money doesn't buy happiness." Once you've decided that more
money will allow you to do others good, you're in the same structural problem
that materialists are, which is that once you meet goal X, there goal Y will
be, just out of reach, and with it, your happiness.

------
Hisoka
I think once you're in a certain income level, it doesn't matter how much more
you make... until you hit that next income level. As long as you meeting your
survival needs, and not stressing out (live paycheck by paycheck), and of
course don't have a disease/illness, then it doesn't matter if you make $80K,
or $200K, or even $400K/year... it's not until you hit the million dollar mark
where things get interesting. That's when you have financial freedom, and
options open up. So I agree with the threshold thing to an extent.

~~~
bartonfink
Financial freedom isn't about how big your income is, but how long you could
live without that income. If I'm making $1m a year, but I'm a dumbass and
spend $995k, I'm just as tied to my paycheck as the guy who only earns $50k
and spends $45k. A guy who earns $100k a year and still only spends $45k is
much better off than either of those two. Having a larger income impacts your
financial freedom only to the extent that you're able to sock more money away
and live off of that (or the proceeds if you invest). Otherwise, you're just a
wage slave with nicer toys.

Money doesn't buy happiness, but it does buy options.

~~~
ikarous
I cannot agree more strongly.

Most of the folks I know from my generation tend to spend almost all of their
disposable income as soon as they obtain it. I have tried to explain to them
that by doing so, they are selling their own freedom. You are forever at the
yoke of he who employs you if you are living from paycheck to paycheck.

For the first three years of my career, I scrimped on almost all expenditures
in order to accumulate a savings allowing me to be out of work for a period of
at least one full year. I call it the FYF (the Fuck You Fund). I wouldn't
trade it for anything but a true emergency.

------
known
I believe the primary responsibility of any govt is to create jobs in the
society.

~~~
roel_v
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not? Or are you seriously saying
that a government has control over how many jobs are created?

