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Comment by tom_rath | Hacker News Reader

What is there to left understand in Kiba's statement? It's nonsense and I'm surprised it's been up-voted as much as it has.

Jobs are created by wealth. They are not a constant bestowed through the universe by fate.

We don't live in a world of scarcity. Scarcity is created by artificial constraints imposed by those who believe wealth (and society's employment) is a fixed quantity to be allocated by a central force of some sort.

"I'd have plenty if only those who have much more than me would give up their fair share." That's idiocy.

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You have totally misunderstood me.

Because we live in a world of scarcity(limited number of t-shirt, computers, cars, yacht, etc), there is alway enough jobs to go around barring government regulation and attempt at central planning as well fluxes in the general economy.

You also got your economic relationship wrong. Jobs are not created by wealth. Jobs create wealth.(No, digging up holes and filling it in doesn't count nor do I believe that an object's value is defined by how much work is done.)

I don't know where you got the idea that I believed that wealth is fixed and that we need central planning to work. Quite the opposite, really. I believe that the free market system has created unprecendented wealth that men in the last 200, 100, 50, and 10 years ago never imagine.

>I don't know where you got the idea that I believed that wealth is fixed and that we need central planning to work

I'd say the statement "Jobs are not created, only reallocated." did that. Whatever your beliefs and intended context, your statement is completely incorrect.

You are describing things backwards: Jobs do not create wealth -- individuals seeking wealth create jobs.

Individual 'A' hires individuals 'B through n' to realize their vision to build wealth. Jobs do not spawn themselves spontaneously and seek out individual 'A' to bestow upon them the wealth generated by the working individuals 'B through n'.

I am thinking that you severely misunderstood Kiba's argument... he is not a central planner nor did he ever claim that jobs are arbitrarily created by a king who wills it.

Jobs exist as a result of demand for them. Demand goes up as the population increases. Demand is much greater now than it was in 1900.

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