{"id":3034,"date":"2012-10-29T05:30:43","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T10:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/blackwhiteandgray\/?p=3034"},"modified":"2012-10-28T18:01:58","modified_gmt":"2012-10-28T23:01:58","slug":"is-massive-job-creation-likely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/blackwhiteandgray\/2012\/10\/is-massive-job-creation-likely\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Massive Job Creation Likely?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

While the third and final presidential debate focused on foreign policy, it was notable that even there\u2014if my memory serves me\u2014the answers offered regularly managed to find their way back to domestic economic policies. Unemployment and job creation have played a central role in this campaign.<\/p>\n

But is it just me, or does anyone else wonder whether the information-based economy that is ours today simply cannot<\/em> sustain the sort of job-creation demands we are placing upon it? Talk of creating 12 million private-sector jobs\u2014or even 6 or 4 million\u2014ought to give us pause, not because it\u2019s not possible<\/em>, but because it might be quite improbable<\/em>, regardless of who\u2019s in the Oval Office (or in Congress, for that matter).<\/p>\n

As sociologist James Hunter astutely points out in his book To Change the World<\/em><\/a>, much of what drives and sustains the economy and so much of what it sells today is knowledge, information, images, symbols, and entertainment. According to the NFSS, one in three young adults\u2014a significant group of consumers\u2014spends more than an hour a day on social networking sites like Facebook. (I suspect that may quickly become an undercount.) That\u2019s a ton of person-hours spent on something that\u2019s delivered for free<\/em> from a company that has less than 4,000 employees. By contrast, Ford still has 164,000 employees worldwide, but reported 300,000 a mere six years ago. Shell, the second-largest corporation behind Wal-Mart, only employs 97,000 people worldwide, compared to the 2.1 million that work for Wal-Mart. (And we all know how much Wal-Mart pays\u2026)<\/p>\n

The expansion of the State that we have witnessed is perhaps not due directly or even primarily to the heightened influence of decision-makers who wish for<\/em> a more centralized State-shaped economy, but due to the State\u2019s historically-stable role in the production of knowledge and information. In other words, when we made material objects with manual and skilled labor, the State\u2019s role was less pivotal or obvious. (Think regulatory.) But in an economy like ours that privileges things like the health care industry, information technology, and social media\u2014basically the creation and application of knowledge\u2014the State has been and will likely continue to be more involved. We have countless state universities, training the software engineers and physician\u2019s assistants of tomorrow. We have NIH grants to improve health (whether they genuinely accomplish this is not obvious), and NCI grants to combat cancer. We have a large population of aging persons, courtesy of the baby boom and improved ability to sustain (their) life, and hence the emphasis on health care delivery. Over a billion people have a Facebook account, and many use it daily. In other words, our economy is reliant on technologies (and their development) that require more and more knowledge\u2014and hence historically greater State involvement\u2014but fewer and fewer people. Of course<\/em> we have unemployment issues. It should surprise us that unemployment isn\u2019t notably higher<\/em> than it is.<\/p>\n

Add to this our expectations that if persons wish<\/em> to be employed, they ought to be so. This seems comparatively new in human societies. Fewer women were consistently<\/em> in the full-time labor force as recently as a couple generations ago. Now they are, and we generally encourage everyone to consider what they \u201cwant to do with their life,\u201d by which we tend to mean careers in the paid labor-force. (When is the last time you heard a college student state they intend to graduate, marry, and then become a full-time, stay-at-home parent? I cannot recall one.) We expect<\/em> everyone to seek work. In the past, we did not. The voluntary sector has given way to the demand for paid<\/em> non-profit sector jobs. So we\u2019re quite possibly trying to cram more people into the paid labor force than ever before, at a time when the sort of economy we have requires fewer and fewer people.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure it\u2019ll fly. I just don\u2019t see how we in the West will witness an economy of the sort wherein nearly all of the people who wish to find paid, full-time work can do so. It\u2019s not that kind of world. Of course there are partisan ideas about how best to help alleviate unemployment and foster better jobs\u2014from tariffs to ease of access to education to unionization to stimulating lending. I get it, and some of these strategies could very well work.<\/p>\n

But shouldn\u2019t admitting the blunt truth about a very different sort of economy today be a good place to start? (Probably not at this point in the election, I understand\u2026) Eight percent unemployment may not just be the new normal or benchmark. Someday we may well consider it an impressive accomplishment.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the third and final presidential debate focused on foreign policy, it was notable that even there\u2014if my memory serves me\u2014the answers offered regularly managed to find their way back to domestic economic policies. Unemployment and job creation have played a central role in this campaign. But is it just me, or does anyone else […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[183,241,239,240],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mark-regnerus","tag-facebook","tag-james-hunter","tag-nfss","tag-unemployment"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Massive Job Creation Likely?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While the third and final presidential debate focused on foreign policy, it was notable that even there\u2014if my memory serves me\u2014the answers offered\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/blackwhiteandgray\/2012\/10\/is-massive-job-creation-likely\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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