I've seen this Robert Reich piece linked here and there, and I know I'm late to the party, but it's just too rich to avoid. You see, he's complaining (!!!) about higher worker productivity:
America has been losing manufacturing jobs to China, Latin America and the rest of the developing world. Right? Well, not quite. It turns out that manufacturing jobs have been disappearing all over the world. Economists at Alliance Capital Management in New York took a close look at employment trends in 20 large economies recently, and found that since 1995 more than 22 million factory jobs have dis[a]ppeared.
[...]
What’s going on? In two words: Higher productivity.
I'm visualizing Reich's grim facial expression now. This next part is telling:
All over the world, factories are becoming more efficient. They've installed new equipment and utilized new technology. And that often means fewer jobs. Market reforms have also played a role. In China, new modern factories are replacing large, inefficient state-run plants. The result is that even as China produces more goods than ever before, millions of factory workers have been laid off.
Emphasis mine. In Reich's world, nothing happens without top-down management. Somebody reformed the market to allow this? Couldn't it just be the inevitable change forced by the market, instead of change forced into the market? His lament continues:
Manufacturing is following the same path as agriculture. As productivity rises, employment falls because fewer people are needed. In 1910, almost a third of adult Americans worked on farms. Now, fewer than 3 percent do. But American agriculture is the most productive in the world.
This is a large part of the American success story. It's the mechanism that now allows us to buy a loaf of bread for about ten minutes worth of pay, instead of hours. People, especially farmers, attempted to stall this progress. Imagine if they had been successful. Loaf of bread, $18.99. Dozen eggs, $26.50. Ham? Maybe we'll splurge around Christmas time. Productivity, you see, is a good thing. Reich is on the wrong side of history, economics, and most importantly, people. He concludes:
The issue we really ought to be talking is what jobs Americans, and everyone else, will be able to find when machines are able to do just about everything.
There he goes with that top-down thing again. Reich, we don't need to 'talk' about anything. That third of the American work force you mentioned earlier is still gainfully employed, thank you. They tend to stay that way until the government, run by people like you, starts meddling and causes depressions and such.
Free market advocates, in private conversation, often express frustration with people like Reich, feeling that it's ignorance that prevents them from fully embracing a market system. In this case they may be right. I can scarcely believe he was once the Labor Secretary.
Posted by Walter at November 12, 2003 08:26 AM