Then why has the average hours worked by each person declined considerably over the decades? Is this not equivalent to there being less jobs in the economy?
This is why there is going to be another tech jobs bubble. The state is going fund tech jobs; that is, they're going to fund schools to "train" engineers/programmers/developers/etc. because it's what the "industry" needs (read: what the big tech companies want, but don't want to pay for). Eventually, there will be so many engineers/programmers/developers/etc. that they will make crap wages, which happens to be good for the big, bureaucratic tech companies. And college students will go along with it because they will believe they are being trained to enter careers in the tech industry and because they think the market is about filling slots--as you would say, "this economy needs more software engineers."
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
@Muffinburg: Well, there is a large and growing demand for technical work and the nature of the work is naturally difficult (the required schooling weeds out a lot of the mentally lazy) but you are right that there are a lot of machinations going on. I've been in the industry for almost 7 years now and I've begun to understand the "system" - it's not just tech jobs, it's the entire corporate model. It's a system designed for controlling really smart people.
Anyone can start a factory and hire low-wage workers and keep them running on the corporate-tax-slave treadmill. But it takes special skill to be able to trap very intelligent, independent-minded people... people who read books, study and can solve complex problems. To keep these people on the treadmill, you need a "smarter" version of the fatcat capitalist factory system - you need a system that gives people the feeling that they are in a factory even though they are not. And that's what the big tech corporations are all about. It's about "factory-izing" technical work - reducing complex tasks into a recipe of mundane, repetitive steps. Underlying both systems (regular "blue-collar" factories and the new-fangled white-collar factories) is what I call the threat-based social order.
Smart people are afraid of what they don't know every bit as much as stupid people are. And "smart" or "knowledgeable" is a purely relative term... in an absolute sense, the most knowledgeable person in the world knows just a tiny drop in the ocean of information that is out there. So the scales are balanced in favor of the fear-monger, the authoritarian who wants to use vague threats based on what you are ignorant of. The factory worker shows up to work because he could never organize his own factory even if he had the capital. In essence, the same is true of the smart people who work at tech firms. They might be able to solve complex technical problems but they could never operate in the market as it is, that is, the crony-capitalist market that is based on who you know.
In the long-run, there are two end-states to the system. Either you conform (because you are conformist or because your will has been broken) or you become ambitious and start apprenticing to expand the system. That is, when you become senior, they begin to recruit you to become a mini-factoryizer who keeps the junior people on their little treadmills. Your treadmill changes from being about "productivity" to being about "mentoring", aka, helping management keep the junior people running hard on their "productivity" treadmills. If you start climbing the "corporate ladder" this way, your job becomes about checklisting. Did John fill out spreadsheet A? Did Jane forward spreadsheet B to John by the due date? What is the due date for spreadsheet C? It's a pyramid structure built not on smart people solving problems but on ambitious people keeping less ambitious people busy doing the mundane tasks into which the job has been broken by other, more ambitious people.
Needless to say, I hate it.
Clayton -
Clayton, tell us how you really feel.
Clayton: @Muffinburg: Well, there is a large and growing demand for technical work and the nature of the work is naturally difficult (the required schooling weeds out a lot of the mentally lazy) [...]
@Muffinburg: Well, there is a large and growing demand for technical work and the nature of the work is naturally difficult (the required schooling weeds out a lot of the mentally lazy) [...]
I was totally factoring that in. It's getting evermore difficult for the big, established tech companies to recruit the very smart, independent-minded people who read books, study and can solve complex problems because those people are going to the startups that offer more freedom--that is, less bureaucracy--and better pay. Not only that, but they are working with founders who are as ambitious and crazy as they are AND that have capital to not rely on VCs, banks, etc. So, the big, established tech companies are left with college grads who got straights A's for memorizing the textbooks. That is why I think that those companies want the government to fund the training of these college students in SAP, MS Office/Access/Project, Java, etc. That way, those companies can hire cheap, local labor to compete with the very smart, independent-minded people who read books, study and can solve complex problems and then use the IP hammer when they eventually lose.
But the problem with this central planning, like all central planning, is that they ignore the price signals and there will eventually be too many people in the tech industry, just like there were too many houses during the housing bubble. It'll be one huge malinvestment.
I would kindly disagree with Daniel on this one. My belief is that one must do what he likes the most to do and share his "hobby" it with other people (that's why sitting on the sofa all day and playing video games is not a proper "hobby"), that is a perfect kind of job. That's what I do part time (and part time I work so I won't die, until I manage to succeed in my former hobby).
I know, it's my opinion only from philosophical side, not economical.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
MaikU:[...] and part time I work so I won't die [...]
But you do something else so that you won't die. You're not relying on playing video games.
Some people do. Check out Daigo Umehara or Justin Wong. Or look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming
The Bomb19:Then why has the average hours worked by each person declined considerably over the decades? Is this not equivalent to there being less jobs in the economy?
Good one. And you're right, mechanization does lead to fewer jobs. But unemployment is not a function of the amount of jobs in an economy. "Creating jobs" does not lead to less unemployment, and a "loss of jobs" does not cause unemployment. And here's why (simplifying). In a normally functioning economy, available labor is distributed across the work that needs to be done. If labor-saving technology is introduced, part of the labor force will not just be unused from then on. The price would go down and at some point it becomes profitable to hire them again. Or they gain new skills to become a different kind of labor. I say would, because we don't let this happen. We keep trying to artificially set the price of labor. This has the effect that part of the workforce is banned from working at the price they are competitive at. So unemployment is an effect of intervention, not of there being to few jobs to go around. If we abolished some modern machinery to immediately create a huge amount of demand for labor, or nuked China to get all those jobs back, but stuck with the same labor laws and unfree markets, unemployment would just go back up to more or less the same level as before. Just that now we're producing less stuff, so we're poorer.
@Muffinburg: Can you point me in the direction of some articles or, better yet, specific leads where I can learn more about this? I really want out of this corporate rat-race but I can't afford to just "quit my job" as James Altucher recommends... I have too many obligations right now. But I feel like I need to get out of this and get into doing some real work that challenges me and forces me to develop myself.
Clayton: @Muffinburg: Can you point me in the direction of some articles or, better yet, specific leads where I can learn more about this?
@Muffinburg: Can you point me in the direction of some articles or, better yet, specific leads where I can learn more about this?
Specifically, on what?
I really want out of this corporate rat-race but I can't afford to just "quit my job" as James Altucher recommends... I have too many obligations right now.
I don't know what your personal situation is, but you could do something on the side, or partner up with somebody. You could build a business and then sell it for a couple hundred thousand and then use that capital to build another business, and so on.
But I feel like I need to get out of this and get into doing some real work that challenges me and forces me to develop myself. Clayton -
What's your attitude like; do you want to change the world, or do you see the making of money as a means to your own ends while relieving the felt uneasiness of others? (As an aside, I don't believe for one second that Zuckerberg was solely interested in changing the world, but it was a great marketing story.)
If you have the time, you could re-wire your brain, to get into the capitalist/entrepreneur-promoter mindset by following people in the start up scene, reading books, videos, etc.
Reading Niall Ferguson's books on the Rothschilds made me realize that undercutting can lead to greater future business. Reading Folsom's The Myth of the Robber Barons is a great motivational book because it shows you that you can compete with the state (until they shut you down, but by then you have made a lot of money). Also, I like watching http://www.youtube.com/user/ThisWeekIn, specifically the ones on Startups, VC, and Social Media. I like Altucher, but he loses me when he talks about suicide and depression.
What's your attitude like; do you want to change the world, or do you see the making of money as a means to your own ends while relieving the felt uneasiness of others? (As an aside, I don't believe for one second that Zuckerberg was solely interested in changing the world, but it was a great marketing story.) If you have the time, you could re-wire your brain, to get into the capitalist/entrepreneur-promoter mindset by following people in the start up scene, reading books, videos, etc. Reading Niall Ferguson's books on the Rothschilds made me realize that undercutting can lead to greater future business. Reading Folsom's The Myth of the Robber Barons is a great motivational book because it shows you that you can compete with the state (until they shut you down, but by then you have made a lot of money). Also, I like watching http://www.youtube.com/user/ThisWeekIn, specifically the ones on Startups, VC, and Social Media. I like Altucher, but he loses me when he talks about suicide and depression.
I think I'm a little of both. What I'm doing right now is developing my own programming language. This is a "change the world" kind of project but I don't expect to repeat it ever again. I view it as more of a personal rite of passage.
What would be my dream job would be able to do both - change the world and build a great business. For example, I sometimes fantasize about doing motivational-type speaking on the subjects that I write a lot about on these forums (how to be happy, what morality and law really are, the importance of escaping the pervasive fears in society and just doing what you want to do with your life, etc.) I cannot even conceive how to go about getting something like that working.
I guess what I'm saying is I have absolutely no clue whatsoever what it really means (nuts and bolts, day-to-day activity) to start/run a business. When you say something like "you could build a business" I am baffled by what that even means.
Thanks for the resources, I'll check them out.
What would be my dream job would be able to do both - change the world and build a great business. For example, I sometimes fantasize about doing motivational-type speaking on the subjects that I write a lot about on these forums (how to be happy, what morality and law really are, the importance of escaping the pervasive fears in society and just doing what you want to do with your life, etc.) I cannot even conceive how to go about getting something like that working. I guess what I'm saying is I have absolutely no clue whatsoever what it really means (nuts and bolts, day-to-day activity) to start/run a business. When you say something like "you could build a business" I am baffled by what that even means.
Some advice I think in terms of wanting to become a motivational type speaking on subjects like "how to be happy" or "Doing what you want to do in life"- the most important step in selling something like that is to have it be your personal experience. If you're truly happy then people really will want to listen to you as opposed to someone who thinks he figured out happiness but doesn't live it- it'll also come off in your product and presentation.
Building a business doesn't have to start and end in a day- you could begin by compiling everything you wrote and putting them into all different types of formats you could sell as a package. Books, audiotapes, all of that. Keep working to make sure your writing or recording is as simple and clean to understand as possible. Figure out some good words to catch someone's attention to describe your products- throw a price on it and see what happens- appealing to people's gut instincts is a common theme when it comes to building a business(look how popular nearly anything to do with sexual imagery is), and from what I see there's always a market for people who are into self-development. Learn some basic accounting and the day-to-day of it aren't too bad.
As auctionguy10 pointed out, you should definitely compile what you have written. A website might a good way to do it.
Also, since you are a programmer, have you considered writing any iphone/android apps? Most don't make much money, if any, but if you can come up with something simple and useful, it may be a good way to start out.
I know I would love to have an iphone app that worked well with the Mises site and maybe throw in lewrockwell.com. I would pay for an app that made posting and reading on the forums much easier (even if no one else would). If you're looking to make $$$ then that's probably a bad idea though. Maybe it'll spark a good idea though.
Daniel Muffinburg: MaikU:[...] and part time I work so I won't die [...] But you do something else so that you won't die. You're not relying on playing video games.
not sure I get what you're saying and not sure you got what I said. I meant, that ultimately, most people should reach for those things they prefer the most doing, and if in a process they have to take an uninteresting job.. well, that's how the world works. Most people would also be better of if they brushed their teeth everyday, but pretty much majority of people disliked this process in their childhood. That's kinda similar.
I got lucky and I have quite interesting job even though I don't want doing it all my life. If somone asked me if I hate my job I couldn't say positively, but there are many people I saw and heard who really despise their jobs..That's sad.