“When the product is free, you are the product” – Anon
Are jobs obsolete? – Douglas Rushkoff, Sep 2011
We’re living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That’s because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need… Our problem is not that we don’t have enough stuff — it’s that we don’t have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.
Jobs, as such, are a relatively new concept. People may have always worked, but until the advent of the corporation in the early Renaissance, most people just worked for themselves… we are attempting to use the logic of a scarce marketplace to negotiate things that are actually in abundance. What we lack is not employment, but a way of fairly distributing the bounty we have generated through our technologies, and a way of creating meaning in a world that has already produced far too much stuff
The P2P Evolution – Semil Shah, TechCrunch, May 2011
The driving force behind all of this P2P activity is the fact that today’s technologies make many more types of transaction possible between average consumers by finding an equilibrium between time and money, supply and demand. Transactions once locked up and never realized now create entirely new economies, free of established brands and fat middle-men
What went wrong with economics – The Economist, Jul 2009
There are three main critiques: that macro and financial economists helped cause the crisis, that they failed to spot it, and that they have no idea how to fix it. Economists need to reach out from their specialised silos: macroeconomists must understand finance, and finance professors need to think harder about the context within which markets work.
Maybe Media will be a hobby instead of a job: The Economics of Free – Chris Anderson, Jul 2009
The problem is not that the traditional way of writing articles isn’t valuable anymore. The problem is that this is now in the minority. It used to be a monopoly, it used to be the only way to distribute news… If something has happened in the world that’s important, I’ll hear about it. I heard about the protests in Iran before it was in the papers because the people who I subscribe to on Twitter care about those things
Will work for praise: The Web’s Free-Labor economy – Stephen Baker, Business Week, Dec 2008
This online business model has Americans happily toiling for attention on for-profit sites that don’t pay them money. Many find compensation in currencies that predate the market economy. These include winning praise from peers, earning an exalted place within a community, scoring thrills from winning, and finding satisfaction in helping others.
Don’t focus on looking after your social media superstars, focus on cultivating their replacements (harsh but true)
Economy Recovery Plan for the United States – Philip Greenspun, Nov 2008
Precious little business investment is going forward worldwide. The only chance for the United States to recover is if we can capture most of this investment. How can we do that? We would have to convince businesses that this is the best country in the world in which to invest and operate.
We need to set a credible goal of reducing government spending to 30 percent of GDP within two years and 27 percent within five years. If we can’t count on vibrant economic growth, this will involve dramatic changes to government benefits.
How good a job would you do at your company if customers were required by law to buy your product? That’s the situation faced by public school management today. We keep slipping behind other countries in the subject areas that matter in the highest paying jobs
Mass transit is critical to business in the parts of our country where workers use public transit to get to work. Public transit unions should be eliminated because a strike at a mass transit system can shut down an entire city.
Links
- What really caused the Eurozone crisis? – BBC News, Dec 2011
