And here's my response to David Autor's reply to my email: Dear David Autor,
Thanks so much for your thoughtful and prompt reply. I appreciate your purpose to, as you say, "give a more nuanced interpretation of the legitimate concerns surrounding the impact of rapid technological [change] on job opportunities." My point was actually that invoking the lump-of-labor canard poses a*hindranc*e rather than a help to achieving that laudable objective, which I share. As I wrote, my intention was not so much to dispute your arguments about technology and employment or even about the lump-of-labor notion itself as to bring to your attention the positive contribution that could be made by giving a fair hearing to the actual views of those who are worried about technological unemployment. I didn't "miss" your point at all, instead I chose to avoid piling a gratuitous critique of your conclusion on top of my main criticism of your premise. But since you asked... I would characterize your outlook and prediction as fitting neatly into Keynes's category of "too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they [economists] can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." Your "too easy, too useless" outlook and prediction flows seamlessly from the unexamined premise of viewing labor as a commodity. Karl Polanyi argued that such a description of labor is "entirely fictitious" yet actual markets are based on this fiction. An alternative description of labor is as a commons, or to use the late Elinor Ostrom's term, a "common-pool resource." The words and actions of ordinary workers, trade unions and even machine-breakers make a great deal more sense from the perspective of treating labor as a common-pool resource rather than as a commodity. By contrast, the inane assumption attributed to workers by their detractors is itself predicated on the unstated assumption of the unquestionable commodity status of labor. Profoundly different policy implications flow from the two contrasting assumptions, as do fundamentally different predictions about the future. It seems to me that a "more nuanced interpretation of the legitimate concerns..." would seek to include both the common-pool resource and the commodity interpretations of labor rather than to exclusively feature the latter while inadvertently disparaging the former by attributing it to a belief in a spurious fallacy. I'm only scratching the surface here. I could go into much more detail and provide extensive reference on the question of viewing labor as a commodity versus viewing it as a common pool resource but life is short and I don't want to annoy you with unsolicited "singing lessons." Cheers, Tom Walker On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 9:23 PM, Tom Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > Here's my letter to the David Autor and David Dorn, > > Dear David A. and David D., > > As you both no doubt are aware, I have written the only peer-reviewed, > historical examination of the alleged lump of labor fallacy and have > concluded that there is no evidence that those accused of supposing that > the amount of work to be done was a fixed quantity -- whether they be > labelled Luddites, trade unionists, French Socialists or "populists"-- ever > believed any such thing. In fact most assertions avoid specifying exactly > who is being alleged to commit the fallacy. It is rather inconvenient to > have an idea without a thinker who actually thinks the idea. > > When the supposed opponents of such an anonymous, supposed thought are > similarly only vaguely identified as "economists," then we appear to have a > phantom calling out a specter. I can name two actual economists who > explicitly refuted the fallacy claim -- Maurice Dobb and A. C. Pigou. Can > you name any "economists" who offered substantive evidence for the > "supposition" of a fixed amount of work (by evidence, I mean the citation > of something said or written by somebody that indicates they held the > alleged belief)? > > You may be surprised to learn that this claim of a fallacy preceded the > Luddites by over 30 years. Dorning Rasbotham, a Lancashire magistrate, made > the claim in a pamphlet titled, "Thoughts on the Use of Machines in the > Cotton Manufacture." True to the eventual custom, Rasbotham declined to > name the "they" who allegedly said there was "a certain quantity of labour > to be performed." > > My point in bringing all this to your attention is not simply to > contradict your arguments about technology and employment. I think there is > something much more important at stake here. You see, when you put words in > other peoples' mouths or put thoughts in their heads that are not their > words or their thoughts, you close off the possibility that they may have > actually had different words and thoughts and that those unheard but > genuine words and thoughts may be infinitely more interesting and relevant > than the ersatz "words" and "thoughts" that you have attributed to > Luddites, trade unionists or whomever. > > Perhaps economists suspect that what working people say and think couldn't > possibly be as profound as what economists (or 18th century gentry > magistrates) think? Historians have looked into the matter, though. Folks > like Eric Hobsbawm and E. P. Thompson. For example, there are over 2,000 > citations for Thompson's 1971 article, "The moral economy of the poor in > the eighteenth century." Over 8000 citations to Thompson's 1963 book, *The > Making of the English Working Class*, in which Thompson sought to "rescue > the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the "obsolete" hand loom weaver, > [etc.]... from the enormous condescension of posterity." > > But why should economists be concerned with what either Luddites or > economists actually *historically* thought when they can more handily > just recite something some textbook author wrote in 1948 that paraphrased > something some textbook author wrote in 1924 that paraphrased something > some hack journalist wrote in 1871 that reiterates something some polemical > Whig wrote in 1832 that parrots something a gentry magistrate wrote in 1780? > > You wrote, > > In the early 19th century a group of English textile artisans calling >> themselves the Luddites staged a machine-trashing rebellion. Their >> brashness earned them a place (rarely positive) in the lexicon, but they >> had legitimate reasons for concern. >> > > >> Economists have historically rejected what we call the “lump of labor” >> fallacy: the supposition that an increase in labor productivity inevitably >> reduces employment because there is only a finite amount of work to do. >> While intuitively appealing, this idea is demonstrably false. > > > Cheers, > > Tom Walker > > > On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:33 PM, Dan Scanlan < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> >> On Aug 26, 2013, at 5:53 PM, Tom Walker <[email protected]> wrote >> quoting NYT: >> >> >> >>> Economists have historically rejected what we call the “lump of labor” >>> fallacy: the supposition that an increase in labor productivity inevitably >>> reduces employment because there is only a finite amount of work to do. >> >> >> Not if you're a musician. There is always more to explore. Always. >> >> Dan Scanlan >> >> _______________________________________________ >> pen-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >> >> > > > -- > Cheers, > > Tom Walker (Sandwichman) > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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