[Chris2048]

If there is a dire need for potato-picking manual labour, pay will increase, as will the price of potatoes, short-term at least, assuming the change is sudden and of immediate effect, which makes the scenario even more unrealistic. Realistically, rather than labourers becoming indefinitely well-paid, and potatoes indefinitely expensive, alternatives to manual labour will rapidly be developed, incentivised by high demand for potatoes and low supply of labour e.g. potato picking machines (which already exist btw). The sudden increased supply of automation and robotics engineers won't hurt either.

> your supermarket potatoes now cost $50 due to high labor costs

which is as meaningful as $1 potatoes since we don't know the value of a dollar in this hypothetical "everyone is a white collar worker" world. More likely the value applied to all jobs shift, and previously lucrative jobs are not so lucrative anymore; that said, this may not be zero sum, the average standard of living may also increase - but many humans derive their satisfaction relative to the average, a metric that can never satisfy everyone, a poor man in the west today may have better nutrition, health, welfare and SoL than a kind hundreds of years ago.

> people with white collar skills cannot find white collar jobs

This is what I asked - why do you think this is? I'm not convinced.

> there are people w/ master degrees doing Uber

master degrees, in what? If if need to be said: get an education in something useful, and paid well by the market. STEM is usually a good bet.

> they can read and write and do math

But how do those skill translate into something useful for someone else? And how does demand compare to supply?

[lhorie]

> This is what I asked - why do you think this is? I'm not convinced

The simplest way to explain is to just look at basic math: if there are 3 doctor jobs and 4 doctors, one gets the short end of the stick.

> master degrees, in what

In STEM, most surprisingly, but also other careers that sound fairly reasonable. You'd think stuff like civil engineering or accounting would be fine careers, right? But somehow, Uber drivers have the craziest life stories...

[Chris2048]

I've yet to see a doctor unable to either be employed or self-employ.

[lhorie]

Try looking a bit harder then. From my first google search:

"Among European countries that have grappled with the problem of unemployed doctors are Italy, with an unemployment rate among doctors of 17% in 1990; Austria, with a rate of 9%; Germany, with 8%; the Netherlands, with 6%; and Spain, with 5%. In the Nordic countries the phenomenon is more recent-throughout most of their history they have suffered a shortage of doctors. Since the early 1990s, the unemployment rate among doctors has increased rapidly in both Sweden and Finland, and is expected to reach 10 to 15% by the year 2000"[0]

[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/014107689608900...

[Chris2048]

  Among the unemployed doctors in countries with a large public sector of health care, there has been little interest in venturing out as private entrepreneurs. Instead, the medical profession is interested in protecting the position of doctors as employees in the public sector, which can secure their position in the division of labour in health care better than the private sector.

It can't be helped if an industry is socialised to the extent that professionals are dependant on the state. At that point the mechanics of supply and demand are affected by interference.