Retire early: It's your Duty to Society!

[LOL!]

Here's an inflammatory editorial in the NYTimes about the Superfluous Worker and how to get rid of them:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/opinion/the-age-of-the-superfluous-worker.html

My conclusion is that it is better to have them retire early than to sell them into slavery, put them in jail, or kill them off in wars.

What do you think?

 

[Walt34]

This is satire, right? He stops just short of suggesting Soylent Green.

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

The proposal he offers is essentially more central planning and socialism. May I offer a different solution: new industries based on new technologies that the average person is willing to spend money on. In other words, society could foster creativity and entrepreneurialism, which create new jobs.

 

[freebird5825]

This is satire, right? He stops just short of suggesting Soylent Green.

+1
That was my impression also.

 

[LOL!]

The proposal he offers is essentially more central planning and socialism. May I offer a different solution: new industries based on new technologies that the average person is willing to spend money on. In other words, society could foster creativity and entrepreneurialism, which create new jobs.

He wrote:

New technology and the products and services that accompany it will create new jobs.

 

[Spanky]

+1
That was my impression also.

Somehow, I did not get that impression. The author simply says that job creation is a must.

 

[Spanky]

May I offer a different solution: new industries based on new technologies that the average person is willing to spend money on. In other words, society could foster creativity and entrepreneurialism, which create new jobs.

Good idea. Low worker dismissal costs and low taxation may help job creation also.

 

[MichaelB]

Mr. Gans gives us a random list of factors that contribute to the high number of unemployed people in the US. He projects these into the future, leading (of course) to a grim outlook. He proposes that an industrial policy with specific focus on employment would change that and lead to a much rosier future, and this improved outcome would be well worth the cost. It is an op-ed with no data, just his highly qualified opinion.

 

[Midpack]

Surprising that he'd be given space for a NYT column. The author, a Prof Emeritus of Sociology, might benefit from auditing an economics class at Columbia. A few examples, italics added...

AMERICA, like other modern countries, has always had some surplus workers — people ready to work but jobless for extended periods because the “job creators,” private and public, have been unable or unwilling to create sufficient jobs.

America will have to finally get serious about preserving and creating jobs — and on a larger, and more lasting, scale than Roosevelt’s New Deal. Private enterprise and government will have to think in terms of industrial policy, and one that emphasizes labor-intensive economic growth and innovation. Reducing class sizes in all public schools to 15 or fewer would require a great many new teachers even as it would raise the quality of education.

In the long run, reducing working time — perhaps to as low as 30 hours a week, with the lost income made up by unemployment compensation — would lead to a modest increase in jobs, through work sharing. New taxes on income and wealth are unavoidable, as are special taxes on the capital-intensive part of the economy. Policies that are now seemingly utopian will have to be tried as well, and today’s polarized and increasingly corporate-run democracy will have to be turned into a truly representative one.

 

[nun]

There's an element of satire, but he's pointing out the malthusian possibilities inherent in the capitalist push for greater productivity. If capitalism is allowed to produce profit for shareholders without consideration for society as a whole we'll be looking at "Soylent Green" at some point. The laissez faire of the advocates of Hayek says that Government has no part in directing the economy or spurring job and economic growth. That is wrong; a mixed economy is the best way to balance the needs of all. It's certainly better than just letting the likes of BP run the country.

 

[ls99]

Did he mean this sort of ER?

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[Nords]

Mr. Gans gives us a random list of factors that contribute to the high number of unemployed people in the US. He projects these into the future, leading (of course) to a grim outlook. He proposes that an industrial policy with specific focus on employment would change that and lead to a much rosier future, and this improved outcome would be well worth the cost. It is an op-ed with no data, just his highly qualified opinion.

About all I can conclude from this article is that Mr. Gans made his deadline, and even that may be speculative...

 

[nun]

Did he mean this sort of ER?

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Maybe, unfortunately a third of these folks are uninsured

 

[obgyn65]

I agree with the quote "New taxes on income and wealth are unavoidable, as are special taxes on the capital-intensive part of the economy." As mentioned on this website in the past, I would be ok to pay more taxes provided they are directed to more social causes, including universal healthcare, better access to contraception, extended benefits for women and men with young children, etc.

I realize many here will not agree with me.

 

[nun]

I agree with the quote "New taxes on income and wealth are unavoidable, as are special taxes on the capital-intensive part of the economy." As mentioned on this website in the past, I would be ok to pay more taxes provided they are directed to more social causes, including universal healthcare, better access to contraception, extended benefits for women and men with young children, etc.

I realize many here will not agree with me.

+1 but I wouldn't make then contingent on where they would be directed. The spending priorities should be decided by our representatives.

 

[ziggy29]

Absent the "Soylent Green" or "Logan's Run" scenarios here, the way I see it is this: there's going to be a certain amount of social safety net spending on senior entitlements (including those that facilitate retirement) and the same for unemployment benefits and the other things (food stamps, Medicaid et al) that come with them.

If I'm going to spend the same amount on either retirement/old age benefits or unemployment benefits, I'd rather help someone older retire and free up a job for someone collecting unemployment than to force an elderly person to work until they drop dead while younger folks can't find work. Seems to me we improve the lot for two households for not much difference in overall social spending.

Again, this assumes there's going to be some social spending one way or the other.

 

[LOL!]

I am reminded of places that are less productive and require more people to do the same thing that we do in the USA. For example, in China you might have 100 men on a road crew digging and moving dirt since there would be no buildozers nor backhoes. In South Africa, you pay a tip to someone to make sure you can back out of your parking space (and that your car is not scratched while you are parked). Maybe he is waxing nostalgic about gas station attendants, restroom attendants, yard men, maids, those homeless folks who cleaned your windshields in Manhattan, and all kinds of other menial service folk.

 

[M Paquette]

Ah, for the good old days, when we could count on grinding poverty and wars to reduce the surplus population.
:face palm:

I really hope that article was satire, although I know there is a small portion of our society that actually believes in the above.

 

[nun]

Ah, for the good old days, when we could count on grinding poverty and wars to reduce the surplus population.
:face palm:

I really hope that article was satire, although I know there is a small portion of our society that actually believes in the above.

I think the author is pointing out the amorality of capitalism and it's focus on profit sometimes at the expense of people. He's not suggesting we return to the "good old days", just that the some of the factors that contributed to the success of 20th century capitalism are no longer in effect. Capitalism provides excellent outcomes for many, but we must temper it so that is does not destroy a significant number of people. I'm always confused when people who proclaim themselves Christian take the opposite point of view, it's one of those "What would Jesus do" moments.

 

[W2R]

From the article,

When the jobless recovery ends and the economy is restored to good health, today’s surplus will be reduced.

I am proud to announce that I retired two years ago, leaving my job open and available for the first qualified person to come along. (It took over a year of constant advertising by my agency before anybody qualified did apply.)

Now, instead of hogging a job that others need, I am patriotically contributing to the economic health of our country by spending more in retirement than I did while working.

Do I get a medal or something? I'm waiting excitedly for it.

 

[ziggy29]

I am proud to announce that I retired two years ago, leaving my job open and available for the first qualified person to come along. (That took over a year of constant advertising by my agency.)

Now, instead of hogging a job that others need, I am patriotically contributing to the economic health of our country by spending more in retirement than I did while working.

Do I get a medal or something? I'm waiting excitedly for it.

I honestly don't understand why, given the shortage of jobs relative to generally qualified applicants, retirement (especially early retirement) is portrayed as selfish. Seems to me it's even 8more* selfish to hold on to a job you no longer financially *need* while several unemployed folks who need that job are waiting and ready to do it.

 

[W2R]

I honestly don't understand why, given the shortage of jobs relative to generally qualified applicants, retirement (especially early retirement) is portrayed as selfish. Seems to me it's even 8more* selfish to hold on to a job you no longer financially *need* while several unemployed folks who need that job are waiting and ready to do it.

This is why I retired on the very first day that I qualified to do so and consequently didn't need the job. (Well, actually the third day since the first day was a Saturday - - I wanted to be sure there was no question about it). I wanted to retire, others want to work, or so I thought at the time, so it was a no-brainer.

I expect that medal, along with appropriate fanfare and ceremony, to materialize any day now.

 

[eytonxav]

I honestly don't understand why, given the shortage of jobs relative to generally qualified applicants, retirement (especially early retirement) is portrayed as selfish. Seems to me it's even 8more* selfish to hold on to a job you no longer financially *need* while several unemployed folks who need that job are waiting and ready to do it.

+1 , I had a friend that hung on to 68, didn't need the money, but claimed his wife didn't want him hanging around the house

 

[kyounge1956]

I don't think it is satire. The author sees a large and growing number of people who are unlikely to find employment in the future, plus economic trends such as offshoring of jobs, mechanization and rising productivity per worker, which tend to add to the number of these "superfluous" workers. In the distant past, he says, these people would have died from poverty-related causes, or been killed off in wars, or transported to the Colonies, or (even longer ago) been sold as slaves. In more recent history, the surplus labor force was reduced by locking some of them up in jail which kept them off the unemployment rolls while incarcerated and made them less unemployable after release, but this "solution" is expensive and it may not be possible to continue it in the future. Medical advances have made it less likely these superfluous workers will die from illnesses of poverty, and more likely that soldiers will survive injuries which in the past might have killed them outright.

There are a number of possible responses to this state of things. One possibility is to make no attempt to change it. Another is to redistribute wealth by taxing the people who have higher incomes and/or assets to provide support for those with lower income/assets.

A third possible response is to redistribute the work—i.e. employ more people to generate the same output of goods and services. (Actually, the editorial combines employment redistribution with economic redistribution, by proposing that the difference in wages caused by reduction of hours be made up by unemployment compensation, paid for by new taxes on income and wealth, which in the author's opinion are unavoidable.) I defintely agree with the author on this:

A society that has permanently expelled a significant proportion of its members from the work force would soon deteriorate into an unbelievably angry country, with intense and continuing conflict between the have-jobs and have-nones.

I don't know if redistribution of work is better than other potential responses, but I think it should be considered along with other options.

 

[brewer12345]

+1 , I had a friend that hung on to 68, didn't need the money, but claimed his wife didn't want him hanging around the house

I take it he stayed at work because there were no titty bars nearby?