Comment by fluxic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fluxic | Hacker News Reader

>Using the Microsoft Corporation as his benchmark, Mr. Luttwak says that the new high-tech titans produce much capital but relatively few new jobs. The rich get richer, but those driven out of work by the computer revolution are forced to take lower-paying service jobs. The unskilled they displace turn rationally to criminal activity like drug dealing.

Prescient.

Facebook is a $400B corporation, one of the world's most valuable, and it employs, what, 15k people? Before, your bigcorps like Carnegie Steel and Standard Oil employed hundreds of thousands.

We no longer need labourers for factory work, to fight wars, to flip burgers or drive trucks. People say that automation will only create more jobs and freedom, but I have a hard time believing that. Automation is the ultimate triumph of capital over labour. The rich don't need Middle America any more, because most Middle Americans don't have any worthwhile skills. Americans in "flyover country" are increasingly unemployed, filing for disability, and dying of opioid overdoses. And people wonder why Trump got elected.

I'm parroting the points made in this delightful talk here, by a YC alum no less: https://www.facebook.com/antonio.f.garcia.martinez/posts/101...

I think you are right that "automation is the ultimate triumph of capital over labour," but I'd really like to point out that knowledge capital is a huge part of this. Having an employable skill these days is becoming more and more synonymous with having some sort of knowledge capital, because essentially everything that doesn't require knowledge capital can be automated away.

>Americans in "flyover country" are increasingly unemployed, filing for disability, and dying of opioid overdoses.

That's not true in general, and it implies that states like California don't face these same issues. If you look at the unemployment rate of states, the 25 states with the lowest unemployment rates are all "flyover country." [1]

I think the root of these problems are caused by structural unemployment. Living in a flyover state is a great predictor of these problems, but it is not the cause.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/200017/state-unemploymen...

[stupid comment, deleted]

You have this backwards. New Mexico is #1 for unemployment only if you're going for a high score. Obviously, high unemployment should match low labor participation, which is what you see.

The numbers make a lot more sense than you think.

https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm

compares well with your link,

https://www.expresspros.com/Newsroom/America-Employed/Expres...

I wouldn't feel too secure about my knowledge capital if I were you- companies regard skills you obtained in their employ as their intellectual property and they're doing whatever they can to retain it. Right now they can't perfectly do that but in the future, that might change. It might happen by specializing roles to the point that it's just button pushing, or by noncompete agreements, etc.

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