Why do people think factory jobs are good?

[Matt Collins]

https://youtu.be/BdZqHQCArf0


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[TheTexan]

Factory jobs are not good.

But factories, are very good.

Owning and leveraging means of production is how wealth is created.

 

[Matt Collins]

Owning and leveraging means of production is how wealth is created.

It's one way wealth is created. There are other ways too. This includes providing services to others, agriculture, sales, etc.

 

[TheTexan]

It's one way wealth is created. There are other ways too. This includes providing services to others, agriculture, sales, etc.

It's the only way wealth is created.

Everything else is a transfer of wealth.

Let's take a foot massage as an example. Let's say it's worth $10 FRN.

Person 1 has $10 million FRN. He is wealthy.

Person 1 spends $10 million on foot massages. He is no longer wealthy. He now lives in a box on the side of the road.

Person 2, who did a million foot massages for $10 each, now has $10 million FRN, and is very wealthy. She lives in a mansion.

See how that works?

One person lives in a box. The other lives in a mansion.

 

[Matt Collins]

It's the only way wealth is created.

Everything else is a transfer of wealth.

Let's take a foot massage as an example. Let's say it's worth $10 FRN.

Person 1 has $10 million FRN. He is wealthy.

Person 1 spends $10 million on foot massages. He is no longer wealthy. He now lives in a box on the side of the road.

Person 2, who did a million foot massages for $10 each, now has $10 million FRN, and is very wealthy. She lives in a mansion.

See how that works?

One person lives in a box. The other lives in a mansion.

Wow, you have failed econ and business 101. Every time a voluntary trade is made, both people are wealthier.

 

[TheTexan]

Wow, you have failed econ and business 101. Every time a voluntary trade is made, both people are wealthier.

That's your economic religion speaking.

In the real world, if a person spends their entire fortune on foot massages, that person is no longer wealthy.

There's a big difference between wealth and value.

If you spend $10 million on foot massages, you received $10 million worth in value, but you are definitely no longer wealthy.

 

[TheTexan]

If spending money on hookers and coke made you wealthy I'd be the wealthiest motherfucker alive btw

 

[TheTexan]

If spending money on hookers and coke made you wealthy I'd be the wealthiest motherfucker alive btw

Well maybe it does, Hunter Biden seems to be doing fine with this strategy.

Perhaps you are on to something with this.

 

[RJB]

When I was a kid, a man could work at a factory and afford to feed his family while his wife could afford to stay home. People wouldn't mind working in a factory if the dollar was worth what it was.

 

[TheTexan]

Should replace the below meme with infinite wealth creation. Every time a trade occurs wealth is created, right?? Right!??!?!?!

 

[Occam's Banana]

It's one way wealth is created. There are other ways too. This includes providing services to others, agriculture, sales, etc.

"Services to others" involving the servicing or use of ... what?

"Agriculture" involving the growing and processing of food using ... what?

"Sales" involving the sale of ... what?

With the exception of agriculture [1], the ability of all the things you mention to create or generate wealth is pyramided on top of the making of stuff - stuff to be "serviced" (or used in the provision of "service"), and stuff to be "sold". Remove the making of the stuff, and you remove the ability of the "servicers" and "sellers" to create or generate any wealth.



[1] And prior to the industrial age, agriculture at scale was extremely labor-intensive (which contributed to the phenomena of medieval serfdom and colonial slavery).If manufacturing jobs are not "good", then pre-industrial agricultural jobs are even worse. (There's a reason rural populations flocked to factory-filled cities during the advent of the so-called "Industrial Revolution".} To the extent that modern agricultural jobs might be more desirable than factory jobs, that is due to the industrialized "making (and processing) of stuff", not in spite of it.

 

[Occam's Banana]

It's the only way wealth is created.

Everything else is a transfer of wealth.

Let's take a foot massage as an example. Let's say it's worth $10 FRN.

Person 1 has $10 million FRN. He is wealthy.

Person 1 spends $10 million on foot massages. He is no longer wealthy. He now lives in a box on the side of the road.

Person 2, who did a million foot massages for $10 each, now has $10 million FRN, and is very wealthy. She lives in a mansion.

See how that works?

One person lives in a box. The other lives in a mansion.

How did Person 1 acquire those 10 million dollars?

Why doesn't he just keep doing that (especially given how much he seems to like foot massages - presumably, he'd like to continue getting them), instead of moving into a box on the side of the road?

Every time a voluntary trade is made, both people are wealthier.

Wealth must be created before it can be traded.

The fact that voluntary trades are not "zero sum" does not mean they create wealth.

Voluntary trades distribute wealth in accordance with satisfying the subjective "felt needs" of all the traders involved.

IOW: Voluntary trades do not create wealth - they optimize its distribution, which in turn facilitates further wealth creation (for example, "Person 1" in TheTexan's post will be encouraged to produce more wealth so he can continue trading it for foot massages instead of living in a box ...).

 

[TheTexan]

How did person 1 acquire those 10 million dollars?

Why doesn't he just keep doing that (especially given how much he seems to like foot massages - presumably, he'd like to continue getting them), instead of moving into a box on the side of the road?

He sold all his factories' machinery to China for $10 million.

And then spent it all on foot rubs

He was very happy for a short while but now he regrets his decision.

IOW: Voluntary trades do not create wealth - they optimize its distribution.

Correct

 

[Henry Rogue]

That's your economic religion speaking.

In the real world, if a person spends their entire fortune on foot massages, that person is no longer wealthy.

There's a big difference between wealth and value.

If you spend $10 million on foot massages, you received $10 million worth in value, but you are definitely no longer wealthy.

I like your analogy, it really drives home your point. Only production creates wealth and it's true. Division of labor and specialization allow for the expansion of the production possibilities frontier. That is one lesson of Reed's "I Pencil". The lock downs showed us just how wretched the statist are. One galling thing they did was divide us into groups of the essential and the nonessential, I apparently was classified as essential as I drove to and from the job site on empty streets. Service Jobs don't directly produce things, but allow producers to increase their productivity.

 

[jmdrake]

https://youtu.be/BdZqHQCArf0


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At the end of the video the person making the video makes the false claim that "people have moved on" and they have all "upscaled and gone to college", ignoring the painfully obvious trend of fewer young men going to college. Then he talks about the "need" to bring in skilled labor from other countries.
There is a structural problem in our education system. It only prepares people (maybe) for college or perhaps professional sports. A young man in high school once asked my why he had to take chemistry when he wanted to be a mechanic when he graduated. I didn't have a good answer for him. Do you? You're a commercial pilot now. Becoming a pilot pays well but it doesn't require a college degree. (Neither does being an airline mechanic). Might a high school class on aviation be more relevant to some young people than physics or pre-calculus? But all schools are trying to make sure their students get good ACT and SAT scores so they can *gasp* go to college. That's the disconnect here. So what do a lot of these non college people end up trying to do? Make money on YouTube.

 

[jmdrake]

Factory jobs are not good.

But factories, are very good.

Owning and leveraging means of production is how wealth is created.

When the people at the top talk about "service sector jobs" they're thinking white executive. People at the bottom are thinking janitorial. At 1:30 this video in the scene from the movie "Set It Off" four women working for a janitorial service talk about how much they WISH the factory was still running.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Service Jobs don't directly produce things, but allow producers to increase their productivity.

Another way of saying this is that service jobs don't produce things, they produce time - time which can then be used by others to produce more things (or produce them more efficiently).

But without the production of things, there will be nothing to service, nor any means of providing service.

This is not a "chicken-or-egg" conundrum: "making stuff" is the bootstrap that gets the whole process started.

 

[Swordsmyth]

When I was a kid, a man could work at a factory and afford to feed his family while his wife could afford to stay home. People wouldn't mind working in a factory if the dollar was worth what it was.

And that's why factory jobs are good.

The people who sneer at them are spoiled rich kids who don't have to care about being able to earn a living that can support a family.

 

[Swordsmyth]

The fact that free traders have to twist reality this far only goes to show how false their foundation is.

This is right up there with "You will own nothing and be happy".

 

[Henry Rogue]

Another way of saying this is that service jobs don't produce things, they produce time - time which can then be used by others to produce more things (or produce them more efficiently).

But without the production of things, there will be nothing to service, nor any means of providing service.

This is not a "chicken-or-egg" conundrum: "making stuff" is the bootstrap that gets the whole process started.

Yes, I understand that.