{"id":173,"date":"2004-11-20T02:18:05","date_gmt":"2004-11-20T07:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/server97.snhdns.com\/~ravik\/wp\/?p=173"},"modified":"2004-11-20T02:18:05","modified_gmt":"2004-11-20T07:18:05","slug":"prodding-productivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200411\/prodding-productivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Prodding Productivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that morality and ethics and other such inconvenient things are dispensed<\/a>
\naway with, one can start discussing matters of import.<\/p>\n

One such issue is what to do with increasing productivity of mankind.<\/p>\n

Basically, lesser number of people can do work that might have required more people.
\nA free-marketeer would say that’s a good thing – people are freed to pursue other activities.
\nBut a socialist does not buy this argument at all.
\n
\nHe argues –
\nIf most work is taken care of by the highly productive few, then the remaining jobs shall have to be less essential low productive jobs. This, in an all-pervasive climate of high productivity, leads to sharp societal inequalities.<\/p>\n

Is there anything wrong in the above argument?
\nYes and no.
\nIn an affluent, highly productive society, many of the “other activities” that people are “freed” to do, as argued by the socialist, are indeed doomed to low productivity.
\nBut that does not necessarily lead to societal-inequality driven chaos.
\nFirst off, one must realize that a number of required-service jobs shall always have low-productivity. Basically, those jobs whose output can only be human-created e.g. teaching. One can argue that such jobs are “safe” from whatever gains in productivity society achieves.
\nAs a society gets more and more affluent and productive, a number of service jobs shall also be created to satisfy newly created specialized “needs”. E.g. “Health Advisors” for dogs.<\/p>\n

The socialist is still not satisfied – he points to India and its teeming masses.
\nIf we attain high productivity, and its majority has to make do with “low productivity” jobs, how can we make all of them canine health advisors and teachers he asks. If there is a market for such things in a society like India at all.<\/p>\n

This is where a socialist suffers from a lack of clarity.
\nThe socialist is right in that in highly productive society that is already affluent, many of the “displaced jobs” shall have to be the low productive jobs enunciated above. But the argument does not apply to a low-prosperity country like India!!!<\/p>\n

The capitalist is right in that a society like India can only achieve prosperity by high productivity. This should be obvious since an increase
\nin per-capita prosperity requires an increase in productivity by definition.<\/b><\/p>\n

Is a riotous societal inequality then required? Hell no. What should also be obvious is that just high productivity by a few is not enough! A large percentage, if not the majority, has to be engaged in “high productivity” jobs. Only this can achieve the catapulting of per-capita production and in turn an increase of the per-capita wealth. <\/p>\n

The thing is that this IS possible till the society attains a degree of affluence.
\nHow can you call productivity “too high” when total production == prosperity
\nis not sufficient? <\/p>\n

The biggest crime of the socialist is to trump up the virtues of low productivity techniques == “generating more employment” techniques in a country
\nwith low prosperity!!!<\/p>\n

I rank this on par with genocidal crimes.<\/p>\n

[A proper socialist concern would be:
\nThe high productivity is fuelled by technology and knowledge. And not all people have both the capacity and the fortune to partake of the technology and knowledge bandwagon. Which dooms them to low productivity. How to take care of that in a low-prosperity society like India? This is a matter for a later post]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that morality and ethics and other such inconvenient things are dispensed away with, one can start discussing matters of import. One such issue is what to do with increasing productivity of mankind. Basically, lesser number of people can do work that might have required more people. A free-marketeer would say that’s a good thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}