As Blue Dies, What Happens To the Jobs? Part One

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

 

Walter Russell Mead

4/12/12

 

The blue social model was based on the political economy of the industrial age: an age of mass manufacturing employment in the US and other advanced countries. The shift from blue to post-blue, from industrial age to post-industrial age society, raises many questions that are at the core of our political debates even if they are not always spoken of in these terms.

 

(Snip)

 

The changes are more complicated than they look at first glance, but on the whole, blue collar workers in the US and other advanced industrial democracies have been facing unfavorable conditions for more than a generation. This is clearly associated in the public mind with the movement of manufacturing activity to developing countries where wages are lower. That is not the whole story, as rising automation and other factors also play a part. Nevertheless one of the big facts which dominate the public scene and shape the public mind is the loss of well-paid, secure manufacturing jobs and the related effects on the labor market generally for blue collar work.

 

(Snip)

 

The Republican debate around these issues is less focused because many Republicans think about contemporary political economy in terms of abstractions and norms rather than in terms of historical eras and the social organization of the economy. Social conservatives, for example, diagnose many of our economic ills as having spiritual roots. We have turned away from the virtues and beliefs that made us great (and earned us the blessing and protection of Providence) to chase vain and foolish shadows that will undermine both our liberty and our prosperity.

 

(Snip)

[clearvision]

Someone on this site keeps talking about the transformation we are in...

[Pepper]

Someone on this site keeps talking about the transformation we are in...

 

Who could that be? The name escapes me, but I think it rhymes with valin.

 

[Valin]

Someone on this site keeps talking about the transformation we are in...

 

Who could that be? The name escapes me, but I think it rhymes with valin.

 

 

It's a mystery!

[Valin]

Post Blue Jobs: Part Two

Walter Russell Mead

4/16/12

 

When people think about what will happen to jobs as the blue model continues to crumble, most have a picture in their heads of the type of change that is happening, and it is based on the experience of the last thirty years.

 

(Snip)

 

What’s happening is that computers and software are reaching the point where they can effectively displace more and more routine skilled labor — just as for the last forty years we’ve seen automation reducing the need for routine human labor in factories. At the same time the cost structure of the learned professions is so high that current patterns are increasingly unsustainable.

 

(Snip)

 

A lot of the policies we have in place now make it harder for the Mikes of this world to start out. Tax preferences and givebacks to attract big employers into a city hurt Mike-type businesses. His rates go higher to make theirs lower. Fans of the big government, “smart planning” approach think it’s better to subsidize big companies and lure them into a community, but the reality is that an army of Mikes (or an Army of Davids, if you prefer) will, over time, create more jobs and more wealth and do more for a community than the big boys can do.

 

(Snip)

 

 

Have A Nice day.