In my last substack, I answered the wearisome wail, “What if robots take all the jobs?” But I neglected to challenge one premise: the idea of “all the jobs.”
There isn’t some static quantity of jobs. The number of jobs expands as wealth expands. Jobs, wealth, inventions, knowledge—all are expandable without end.
“What we will do when we run out of jobs” is just like “What will researchers do when they run out of questions to ask?”
There is always more to be learned, acted on, achieved, hired to help do.
We know this both from first principles and from historical experience. History: look at the jobs of today. What percent of them even existed 200 years ago?
200 years ago, 70 to 75% of the American labor force consisted of farmers, according to ChatGPT. And it says about today: “The U.S. labor force is not dominated by a few jobs—it takes dozens of occupations to reach even 75%.” It listed retail salespersons as most prevalent and home health care and personal aides as second.
The jobs done today existed barely or not at all 200 years ago. And what about 1,000 years ago? How many retail salespersons or journalists or podcasters were there in 1026 A.D.?
It’s inventions that create jobs. It’s new knowledge that makes possible new inventions. And we’re not running out of new knowledge. In fact, knowledge is growing exponentially.
What is a job? It’s paid work. Paid out of what? Paid out of the wealth created by past work. Work to do what? To produce things that sustain our lives and make us happy.
Could there come a time or circumstance when there’s nothing that could further protect and advance human life and make us happier? Could there come a time when no one is willing and able to pay to advance his life and happiness?
Nope.
We always need more and better. In fact, the richer you get, the more that you need more money. I experienced that myself, when for a couple of years in my mid-twenties, I became modestly rich (which is a story I’ll tell some day). As my wealth grew, new opportunities opened up for me.
For instance, my new-found wealth meant I could afford to rent a three-floor townhouse in a nice neighborhood in Manhattan.
Then I saw that a few of the townhouses had single-car garages. I very much wanted one. On-street parking in Manhattan is very difficult, Using a commercial garage is quite inconvenient. If only I could buy the townhouse I was renting and have a garage put in it! Then I could comfortably drive myself to the weekend place I had rented out of town. But that would take more money, a lot more money.
I had a cleaning lady for my 3-story rental, but it would be better if I also had a cook, and maybe a driver. I could hire a couple to be a “staff”—if I had more money.
I bought an early reel-to-reel video tape recorder. (VCRs had not yet been invented.) But now I could make my own video recordings—if I got a video camera, microphones, tripods, zoom-lenses, lighting equipment, etc. Also, a portable video recording pack would enable me to make tapes of my speaking engagements. I could hire an assistant to man the camera and help out with the audio-visual altogether. But these things would take . . . more money.
At the time (1969), I correctly foresaw the coming inflation. So I wanted to have a hefty portion of my wealth in gold. But for that not to impact my then-current standard of living, I would need . . . twice as much money.
I could make more money by joining in some investment opportunities that became available to me in the circles I was traveling in. But these deals were very high-risk, so to be reasonably confident that one of them would succeed enough to make up for losses in the others, I would have to take at least 10 of these deals. 20 would be better. And that would take . . . more money.
You get the point. There are always more ways to make your life better. Expanding your horizons just makes further horizons visible. There are always more tasks to be done in order to reach the next level of well-being, and then still more tasks to reach the level after that.
Advancement doesn’t reduce the need to hire people; advancement increases the need (and the ability) to hire people.
The richer the individual, the more his desire and ability to hire help. The richer are the individuals making up a nation, the more demand for labor there is in that nation.
If you are looking for an interesting, high-paying job, would you go to a place like Silicon Valley or to one like Bangladesh?
Poverty does not beget wealth. Wealth begets wealth.
“Go west, young man” was exactly the wrong advice for Horace Greeley to have given in 1865. “Go east, young man, east to New York City” was what he should have said. That’s where wealth was being most productively employed at that time.
“All the jobs” is like “all the desires ”—neither is some static amount; both are replenished by their own successes.
If foreigners, immigrants, or robots do things for us at less expense, that means higher goals become within reach.
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