It’s rather
sad to see the editorial board of the world be newspaper of record, the New
York Times, committing what is probably my least favorite economic fallacy. The
idea that the creation of jobs is good economics, or good for the economy or
us. It’s true that jobs are lovely things but they’re not a benefit, they’re a
cost.
Renewables are good for economic as well as
environmental reasons, as most states know. (More than 143,000 now work in the
solar industry.)
That’s simply an inversion of the reality.
The more jobs there are in renewables then the greater the cost of renewables,
for jobs really are a cost. To put this in terms that the editorial board might
understand, hiring a further 10,000 intellectual dullards to produce the NYT
would be regarded by the management of that newspaper as being an increase in
the costs of producing the newspaper. And they would be right to do so for
using more people to produce the same thing is clearly and obviously an
increase in costs. And the newspaper itself has been reducing the head count
over the years and they’ve repeatedly said that they’re using fewer people in a
bid to reduce costs. They obviously know this with regard to their own position
so why they think the production of anything else at all works to different
rules I’m just not sure.
It’s not even true that jobs are a benefit
to the people that do them. The income from having a job is definitely a
benefit: but that’s exactly what proves that the job itself isn’t. For we get
the benefit of the income in return for putting up with the cost of having to
go to work. You know, we all like working so much that they have to bribe us
with cash to get us to do it? And at the macroeconomic level jobs are also a
cost: anyone working to produce prose for the Grey Lady is obviously not also
available to do something more socially useful like cleaning the sewers.
We would all far prefer to have an income
without going to work, we’d also far rather have everything we desire in the
way of newspapers, electricity and everything else provided without anyone else
having to go to work and the fewer jobs that there are in providing us with any
particular thing then the more things that can be provided by the people now
available to produce those other things.
Jobs are a cost, not a benefit, of a plan.
So to say that renewables are good for economic reasons because they require
more people to be employed than other methods of electricity generation is as
absurdly silly as saying that doubling the staff of the New York Times would be
a good idea while ending up with exactly the same product. It’s just nonsense,
the name of the whole game is to get the maximum production with the least use
of inputs and as labour is an input therefore we want to economize on its use,
not “create jobs” for that is simply increasing our costs.
(Πηγή: Forbes.com)
