
Keynes was wrong. Gen Z will have it worse - mooseburger
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614892/keynes-was-wrong-gen-z-will-have-it-worse/
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joshuaellinger
The headline doesn't match the article.

The article ends with "And so economists dusted off Keynes. Countries that
enthusiastically followed his advice and used public funds to stimulate demand
came out of the recession much better off than those that hesitated. China’s
decision in 2008 to inject stimulus spending worth more than 12% of GDP looks
smart in retrospect."

The title should really say -- "Keynes was right. Gen Z is screwed because we
didn't follow his advice".

But the poor fortunes of Gen Z (in the US) are mostly due to a shift in power
to big corporations caused by a systematic dismantling of labor unions and the
outsourcing of manufacturing to China. Technology is an enabler but not the
central culprit.

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kristianp
Maybe the title should have been "Marx was right". The article mentions this
theory:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immiseration_thesis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immiseration_thesis)

This sounds very familiar: "Marx argued that, in accordance with the labour
theory of value, capitalist competition would necessitate the gradual
replacement of workers with machines, allowing an increase in productivity,
but with less overall value for each product produced, as more products can be
made in a given amount of time, meaning that economic output would increase,
but real wages would stay stable, because the input of human labour stays the
same".

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elliekelly
Only tangentially related to the article but this made me laugh:

> Harvard Business School professor John Deighton, when asked about the future
> of the industry in 2001, said, “Home-delivered groceries? Never.”

I wonder what the equivalent will be in another ~20 years.

~~~
lainga
“Home-delivered groceries? Well, they were a great idea back when everyone had
money.”

~~~
dev-il
on the other hand, the big cost factor that would restrict home delivery to
people who have money is… human labor costs. Once robot-based delivery is the
standard, home delivery may be quite affordable. Maybe even less costly on the
whole than operating supermarkets.

