At 08:36 30/03/05 +0100, John Logsdon wrote (in part):
>The assumption that high productivity = high unemployment possibly
>somewhere else is based on the zero sum game idea.
>I see no reason for this to be true - there is an infinite amount of work
>that needs to be done and only a finite number of people. All it requires
>is both management and investment.
I find such issues both fascinating and very confusing, perhaps because
I've never had any education in economics!
Hence, starting from a position of near-total (economic) ignorance, I
rather suspect that one of the problems, particularly if one considers a
single economy in isolation (i.e. without any external trade or financial
movement), is the question of where the 'investment' comes from. As I see
it, resources (be they monetary or material) which are 'invested' in order
to promote productivity and/or employment are effectively being diverted
out of the pool of 'total individual wealth' (again, be that measured in
monetary or material terms). It therefore seems probable to me that there
is a 'turning point' in the curve, beyond which additional investment is
effectively counter-productive, resulting in reduced 'total individual
wealth' and/or increased unemployment (i.e. increased unevenness of
distribution of wealth). I further suspect that I am making an essentially
political point here, but I'm not even sure of what colour!
In the real world, in which an individual country/economy is not
economically isolated, things can obviously be different - but I suspect
only because one economy can then prosper at the expense of some other one(s).
.... I'm sure that some of you ought to be able to shoot down those mutterings!
Kind Regards,
John
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