
The Rise of Invisible Work - adrianhoward
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/10/rise-invisible-work/7412/
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wpietri
> When people share and rent things instead of buying them, does that mean we
> need to produce less stuff, requiring fewer jobs, ultimately creating less
> economic growth?

Hey look! It's our old friend, the Broken Window Fallacy [1]. It has been so
long since I've seen it I've almost missed it.

Waste is never good for an economy. If it were, we could have an amazing
economy by setting up factories and recycling plants right next to one another
and skipping the output. That's massive activity, but zero productivity, and
it's productivity that we want.

[1] [http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-
fal...](http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fallacy.asp)

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ThomPete
Well if that was the case its interesting that products are built to expire.
Cause its certainly good for companies.

Waste is just a resource we have not found a way to utililze, we will.

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outside1234
> products are build to expire

They aren't - the replacements are higher productivity.

See the PC market for what happens when the replacements are not higher
productivity.

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ThomPete
Eh yes they are. Not all but quite a lot of them.

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jdmitch
>* the widening gap between productivity and employment in America... is
deeply troubling to economists. But it’s possible... that the gap could
contain all these people we are currently not counting.*

Growing productivity could also just lead to decreasing employment if the same
roles are being accomplished by fewer people who do them more efficiently.
Having a bit of work on the side essentially amounts to people who are
employed doing more, rather than unemployed people having an Etsy or ebay shop
which is their main employment. And many of these people probably don't count
as "unemployed," as there are advantages to being set up as a full time seller
(at least on ebay and amazon) for tax purposes.

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JonSkeptic
>So far, the sharing economy’s impact has been largely unseen because we (and
the Bureau of Labor Statistics) are used to counting employment in whole jobs,
or part-time jobs, not something-I-do-on-the-side-while-I-freelance jobs.

I hope it stays that way. I know it's not the best case scenario for the
metrics, but I already report enough to the government as is, please don't
frame reporting more info as a potentially good thing.

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codex
Ideally we would measure success in terms of happiness / GDP, not GDP alone.

That said, services like airbnb have externalities in cost which are born by
all citizens. Transients staying next door? No thanks. Increased rents? Ouch!

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DanielBMarkham
This is worthy of discussion because it brings up a point that's been true for
a long time: the economy the way it actually exists and the economy the way it
exists in many people's minds are two completely different things. So when
politicians talk about doing things to get "jobs" \-- I have no idea what that
term even means. Most politicians think it all boils down to a bunch of
cronyism that ends up with a defense or environmental contractor located in
their district. Maybe some kind of ribbon-cutting ceremony that can hit the
evening TV News.

The article has some pretty big flaws, however, the biggest of which is that
it doesn't even truly understand the degree of dissonance in terms involved.
Instead, we get some marketing blurb thrown out, the "sharing economy" and
then the entire problem is viewed in terms of that.

Bad analysis always leads to bad advice, then bad solutions. This isn't any
kind of new concept that has to do with AirBnB or Uber. _This is the way the
economy actually works_ From gin joints to smuggling to gun running to
"working under the table" \-- the real economy is messy and fuzzy. It's full
of people sharing and trading all kinds of things under the radar. Technology
is just multiplying our ability to hook up and help each other out. That's a
great thing. I just wish the writer could see the forest instead of just a
couple of trees.

But heck, can't have everything.

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Houshalter
>When people share and rent things instead of buying them, does that mean we
need to produce less stuff, requiring fewer jobs, ultimately creating less
economic growth?

Well if this was true you could just force people to buy things they don't
need then throw them away and create economic growth easily.

