And there exists unskilled necessary work that armies of skilled workers can not replace.
But even beyond that there's armies of skilled necessary work that skilled workers can not replace either but seem to forget exist.
Apple doesn't exist without massive sophisticated logistical support but no one ever points out that the naval architects at Maersk or the welders at their shipyards are one piece of the process that allows any one to actually buy anything from Apple.
It would also be nice to frame "necessary" and "unnecessary".
I would think developments like saving the environment, healthcare research, improving public transportation, energy consumption, etc. are all "necessary" work. Building Uber or Twitter or Facebook? I'd lean more towards "unnecessary".
HackerNews is so close to arriving at the conclusion that most jobs (including their own prized "skilled" engineering) are worthless outside of capital accumulation. :)
> And there exists unskilled necessary work that armies of skilled workers can not replace.
I think this is false. Unskilled work is easy to teach and learn, by definition. All you need is an "army" and the unskilled work can be easily fulfilled.
Nobody is arguing that unskilled laborers are incapable. We are saying that they are by definition unskilled. These skills are slow to teach and learn. Having lots of people willing to perform skilled jobs is not enough - they need the skills. The same is not true about unskilled work. Hence the comment about armies of people being able to perform unskilled labor.
The dichotomy doesn't have to be perfect to be useful. There are certainly people who are incapable of anything else - and the US military has also pretty consistent in their statements that there are many people who are incapable of anything useful (in the military).
Much, if not most, of "unskilled" work also has a lot of hidden complexity that means your productivity starts off slow and improves over time.
There's a reason capitalists have gotten us to think of some work as "unskilled," and that's so they can pay those people far less than they should be, and no one raises a stink about it.
The farm worker is an obvious example of "unskilled" labor, but if you watch a video of what these people do minute by minute, hour after hour, for the entire harvest, they are absolutely being underpaid by criminal amounts.
Yet, because we've been convinced it's "unskilled" labor, hardly anyone cares.
Unless you hold some capital, you are paid according to how much your work is valued and how much of it can be supplied, not how hard your work is. They are unskilled in the sense that many other people can perform their job after some training. In aggregate the work of farming is highly valuable, but many individuals who partake in such work aren't specifically so and can be replaced easily even if their work is in fact difficult in itself.
An established rapper could be paid millions for a single mumbled line on a single song but that happens because he can export his value to millions of people who have in interest in it, whereas the ditch-digger can only rely on his labor and what it can provide in his current location.
You say hardly anyone cares, but are you willing to pay extra for the items and services that are produced by farmers and other workers? Perhaps you are, but in reality that is the stopping block that makes people stop caring, and it does have a certain cold logic to it.
I'm impressed you are willing to address a serious point deeply embedded in my downvoted comment.
You are correct - the market will match labor supply with demand. Note that this also cuts both ways - sometimes the market at the "top end" of labor is also constrained. Just because someone is highly skilled does not guarantee a high salary.
Haha, you've nicely described how things work but didnt provide any sane justification for it. But ok, ill play along. How much extra are we talking about? I've just cleaned trains for about 50 000 travelers with 4 people. In my previous job we bake half a million boxes of cookies with 8 people. Farmers however, they feed truly insane numbers. If we charge you 1 cent extra for things you wouldnt complaint about it. Lets see, that would be 50000 cent extra, 500 euro split 4 was. Shit, that would double my salary!
But dont worry about it. I get that you are just that cheap. (Joking)
I'd say saving money is one of the sanest justifications in the insane world we live in.
We are talking about aggregates here. I would have to pay not just you, but tens of thousands of other people that extra cent. Farmers, cleaners, attendants, cashiers, literally any of those professions that play a part in modern life. I guess I could pay only you, but it would hardly be a sane justification, would it?
Again, the problem is that your profession is valuable in aggregate but each individual has very little negotiating power. Unfortunately, if you want to double your salary, you'll have to enter a profession whose members each have a better bargaining position.
Some people like to do more repeatable tasks while others like to do more creative tasks and others don't want to do any tasks at all. We are told that one is better or more required than the other. If we can make a society where people can do what they want to while continuing to have a decent life (whatever "decent" means), its all good.
If you're talking about software development, it's not hard to learn.
You can teach someone unskilled to be a developer in around 6-12 months. Within a year or two they will be working unsupervised to a professional level.
You don't need university for it. You don't need a degree. Anyone can learn it. It's not magic, it just takes time.
But even beyond that there's armies of skilled necessary work that skilled workers can not replace either but seem to forget exist.
Apple doesn't exist without massive sophisticated logistical support but no one ever points out that the naval architects at Maersk or the welders at their shipyards are one piece of the process that allows any one to actually buy anything from Apple.