The Modern Phenomenon of Nonsense Jobs

[Simon_Jester]

The only non-1930s conveniences I really want are consumer electronics and Internet access- which wouldn't add that much expense to a 1930s lifestyle if they'd been invented at the time.

[Channel72]

The "only" non-1930s convenience you want is just an enormous globe-spanning computer network that instantly connects everyone everywhere and gives everyone instantaneous access to exobytes of information, along with the computing power of thousands of ENIACs in your pocket?

I think that would require decades of research, and all the accompanying HR, marketing and administration departments to handle all that "bullshit" paperwork, given that in the 1930s, Alan Turing was still using a typewriter to write up his thesis about some theoretical new-fangled device that could compute functions or something.

[Channel72]

The other is when arbitrary or unnecessary work proliferates to fill up gaps in a worker's schedule created by automation. We should be able to gradually shrink the hours worked per person as our techniques improve, while still providing a good standard of living. If we are not, something's gone wrong.

But really, the problem isn't a proliferation of "bullshit" jobs. The problem is that most corporations won't pay full-time employees for what is essentially part-time hours, because the United States basically has developed a culture around the 40+ hour work week. So, suppose a corporation has 20 people in the Paper-Shuffling Department on staff to perform task X. Suddenly, the R & D department develops a cool new algorithm which automates 70% of task X. Rather than evenly reducing the work load of everyone in the Paper-Shuffling Department so that all 20 people now have 70% less work, the corporation is likely to just fire 14 people in the Paper-Shuffling Department, and let the remaining 6 workers continue working 40 hour work weeks while using the new automation technology.

And even if the corporation decides to keep the same 20 people in the Paper-Shuffling Department on staff (instead of firing 70% of them), management will simply reduce their pay, meaning that everyone in the Paper-Shuffling Department now needs to look for second jobs in order to maintain their current standard of living.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, there's the culture of forty hours being the minimum amount of work for a... 'serious' adult human being. Which is arguably the centerpiece of all this.

Now, I'm not calling this a corporate conspiracy or anything- it's just that there are interlocking forces which create a very strange result: no matter how many labor-saving devices we invent, the amount of actual labor remains almost the same, and has ever since labor agitation imposed the forty-hour work week in the 19th and early 20th century. It's such a routine phenomenon by now that economists (some of them, anyway) seem to treat it more as a law of nature than as a counterintuitive anomaly.

Part of me hopes it remains true, because otherwise the bland assurances that there will always be more jobs for the unemployed break down. Part of me hopes that it changes, because otherwise our distant descendants are unlikely to ever get much happier about the world than we are, and may end up LESS happy.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Part of me hopes it remains true, because otherwise the bland assurances that there will always be more jobs for the unemployed break down. Part of me hopes that it changes, because otherwise our distant descendants are unlikely to ever get much happier about the world than we are, and may end up LESS happy.

Why is the first one a bad thing?

Why must there be jobs for people? If we can have all the resources and services we need to have a healthy society without everyone working in traditional employment, then we don't need everyone working. If it's combined with the current system of total disdain and taking of resources from those who aren't working "enough", then yes, that would be bad, but it seems as if you're taking capitalist employment as part of life rather than a current phenomenon.

[Simon_Jester]

Part of me hopes it remains true, because otherwise the bland assurances that there will always be more jobs for the unemployed break down. Part of me hopes that it changes, because otherwise our distant descendants are unlikely to ever get much happier about the world than we are, and may end up LESS happy.

Why is the first one a bad thing?

Because unemployment exacerbates income inequality, if nothing else. Not only does it create a large bloc of people whose income is zero (not counting transfer payments), but those people tend to absorb resources from friends and relatives, creating further strain on their financial arrangements.

Why must there be jobs for people? If we can have all the resources and services we need to have a healthy society without everyone working in traditional employment, then we don't need everyone working. If it's combined with the current system of total disdain and taking of resources from those who aren't working "enough", then yes, that would be bad, but it seems as if you're taking capitalist employment as part of life rather than a current phenomenon.

I'd rather have a system where everyone worked 30 hours a week than a system where 75% of the population worked 40 hours a week and the other 25% didn't work at all. I'm actually not so concerned about the idea of "work culture," although I do think it should make more allowances for things like "take time off to raise children." What concerns me is the spectre of permanent unemployment through obsolescence of the underclass. I kind of hope that doesn't happen.

[madd0ct0r]

but the hours worked is steadily dropping on average. we are very slowly moving towards that model, drifting into it almost. There's few people seeking to move to it, but once there they can be quite happy staying there?

[K. A. Pital]

Are working hours really falling? I mean the last 10 years or so. I am well aware that from 1860 to 1960 they were seriously reduced.

[Terralthra]

Over the past two years, in America, the number of people working 30-35 hours has fallen, while those working 20-29 hours has risen. This isn't because there is less work, it's because the ACA mandates covering full-time workers, ie, people who work 30 hours or more per week.

[Starglider]

Over the past two years, in America, the number of people working 30-35 hours has fallen, while those working 20-29 hours has risen. This isn't because there is less work, it's because the ACA mandates covering full-time workers, ie, people who work 30 hours or more per week.

And thus it becomes apparent that Obamacare was actually designed and orchestrated by Stas Bush. It may appear to be a massive handout to healthcare insurance companies cruelly mocking the concept of affordable healthcare, but it's actually part of his long term plan to reduce working hours. Once everyone is used to only working 29 hours a week, he will institute single payer healthcare in the US but keep the existing hours.

[Simon_Jester]

Over the past two years, in America, the number of people working 30-35 hours has fallen, while those working 20-29 hours has risen. This isn't because there is less work, it's because the ACA mandates covering full-time workers, ie, people who work 30 hours or more per week.

Does that data count people, or jobs? An increase in the proportion of part-time jobs might not actually mean more workers who work less- it might mean more workers working two jobs.

And yes, the fact that this trend causes trouble for people does somewhat undermine the "modernity should mean we can relax" argument I and others have advanced here. On the other hand, it's also a detail result of the way the US handles health insurance- no other developed country would have this problem, because no other developed country relies on corporations providing health insurance for their employees.

[salm]

Are working hours really falling? I mean the last 10 years or so. I am well aware that from 1860 to 1960 they were seriously reduced.

In Germany people with full time jobs work 40 minutes more per week than 15 years ago while people in part time jobs work shorter than 15 years ago.

Page 24 in this PDF in German - Federal Office of Statistics

[madd0ct0r]

I can't find anything for long term trends in the UK. There's a fair bit over the recession period:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lmac/hour ... t=contrast

but I'm not sure if underemployment in a recession counts as reduced working hours or not. (especially if it's just related to general money worries leading to a desire to work more).

[energiewende]

You should read the blog - this person goes rather further than what you are calling impossible. He even has private health insurance!

---

The hours worked question is an interesting one in economic terms. People value free time, but they also value money. One of the problems with 'extreme early retirement' is that you have a lot of time and no resources to do anything with it. If most people were happy to write and read books, like Keynes probably was, then this could be no problem. If you want to go skydiving or travel the world, you need some money. As productivity increases you do not need to work as long to live the way you did last year, but you are also being offered more reward to work the same next year. What we've seen is rather predictable: extremely long work hours that leave little or no leisure time have disappeared, and working hours have settled on comfortably sustainable figures. If people want more leisure time they're more likely to take it as vacation, which lets you do something different like see another country, as opposed to just another hour a week to watch TV in the evening.

[K. A. Pital]

Um... when you worked 40 years and you can save... hmm, let's put a high figure of 3000 usd that you can just set aside as to not make it too brutal. Working another year will give you another 2,5% compared to what you already saved. Even if you failed to save that much in the first years of employment, the figure is unlikely to breach 5% of total savings. Meanwhile, your remaining life expectancy at age 60 is not that high, and every year is quite possibly adding 5% and upwards to you remaining lifetime.

Unlike money, the use of which can be carefully rationed by a human to make room for savings, it can be generated by putting money in a bank account or making some other investment, years of your life cannot be replenished as of now, since biological immortality is out of reach.

Therefore with each year the cost of free time is rising for a person who is not as dumb as a brick. For me it is maximal even now - this is why I think that becoming a rentier and having 100% of your time as free to do whatever you want is the most optimal outcome. Heh heh. If we are living in capitalism, one has to make the most of it. The number of people on welfare has also rapidly expanded. Often people sneer that welfare folks just don't want to find jobs anymore. But wait a minute - they value their time a lot, and they now have an external source of income. I fully understand them, heh heh.

The idea that people don't really value their time and "work" somehow becomes more valuable to them each day they are closer to becoming a dead pile of flesh seems to be wrong. It takes a lot of propaganda to convince a person that he should work hard all the way up until he dies.

[Simon_Jester]

If you're still in that range of ages we call "the prime of life," say between... I don't know, 20-40 or 20-45 at the latest, you've got enough years of life ahead of you that being offered more money could reasonably make you keep working the same hours.

The logic you describe starts to kick in only when someone is getting close enough to the end of their life that they feel approaching mortality- and I feel sorry for anyone who really feels their mortality creeping up on them prior to, oh, 35 or 40.

[K. A. Pital]

The logic you describe starts to kick in only when someone is getting close enough to the end of their life that they feel approaching mortality- and I feel sorry for anyone who really feels their mortality creeping up on them prior to, oh, 35 or 40.

Mortality is always there. The failure of human mind to not feel it when a human is young is merely the consequence of our biochemical design, a design that is good for preprogrammed biological machines with a 70 year service life, but not so good in and of itself. However, it is clear that medical advances and high probability of survival, as well as generally low adult mortality, have impacted human thinking and life is becoming more and more valuable compared to the XIX, XX or any preceding centuries.

Life is extremely important and its value is seriously underestimated at all times. We heard many rags-to-riches stories, but I haven't heard the story of a person who lived 250 years, myths aside.

[energiewende]

The extreme early retirement guy had a US average salary and retired on investment income in 5 years; that is the whole point of the site. The sacrifices necessary are unpalatable to many people but nonetheless the choice exists.

[K. A. Pital]

I am actually arguing for his (and your) point, am I not? I am basically trying to follow his ways, heh.

[Simon_Jester]

Mortality is always there. The failure of human mind to not feel it when a human is young is merely the consequence of our biochemical design, a design that is good for preprogrammed biological machines with a 70 year service life, but not so good in and of itself.

True- what I mean to get at is that I don't think there's something wrong with the idea that a person would pursue roughly the following trajectory:

-During the first third of my life, I sacrifice time to gain maturity and experience.
-During the middle third of my life, I have maturity and experience, and I now sacrifice time to gain resources (which is easier, now that I have maturity)
-During the last third of my life, I pursue recreation and peace (which is easier, now that I have resources).

This rough balance is consistent with a person deciding to relax some time in their 50s, given current life expectancy. It would be better to adjust the fractions, but in all seriousness, a person who is deterred from working very hard in their 20s or 30s because it involves a cost in the finite number of seconds in their lives... they're missing out on a part of the human experience, too.

Now granted, the question what should we work on is unrelated to this. I know a man who works fourteen and eighteen hour days sometimes making swords of all things- at certain times of year- because bursts of intense work are part of his personal hobby. Not his career, but a hobby that is central to his identity and happiness.

Nevertheless, I want to at least put something up there, in defense of the idea that there is a period in a person's life when "work very hard, at least some of the time" is a positive experience that can strengthen one.

[K. A. Pital]

I am not saying one should not work hard; indeed, if the work is something which gives one a purpose, a meaning, then I have nothing against it - regardless of age. I was merely thinking about the recent retirement age shenanigans and a rising number of working retired (of which I am seriously doubting all are so willing to sacrifice their final years to work). These incidents are not related to youngsters in their 20s or 30s which I'm actually a part of, but rather about extending work time for people in their 50s and 60s who stare in the face of coming death.