As much as I agree with your sensibilities, I have to recognize the tremendous value of cities, especially megacities. (I reviewed a BBC program on Megacities on my blog here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20... )

The primary driver for the creation of the modern city was migration from the country. (The first cities were successful hunting camps. In their abundance, they began growing grains but needed more room for it, so farming was taken out of the city. See Jane Jacobs on The Economy of Cities. Cities did not evolve from farming villages. Also, it still continues, actually. I wrote a paper on farming within megacities today for a graduate geography class.)

The point of that here is that your view of their poverty is relative to your own wealth. They have a better life than they would on farms, otherwise, they would leave the city. Few people do that. I

I also believe that people are the most precious resource on the planet. It is hard to imaging how there could be "too many." At then end of the last ice age, a tribe of 300 might have a genius born once every three generations. Progress is much faster now because we have numerically more geniuses.

Often, customers prefer to be talked to by a customer rather than by a machine, and prefer to be
served by a person rather than by a machine. But
perhaps the businesses have been finding that they
cannot afford the human employees, even if it got them a little more business. Instituting lais-
sez-faire and getting rid of the minimum wage
might do some good in such areas. But if it takes too long, perhaps many employers would never return to having the human employees, even if they could afford it; they might think they could still better afford the robots.

This is why I make my own "job" and have since 1998. Not an easy road, not always profitable, but always fulfilling. I am my own boss, I work ridiculously long hours at times, I seldom take vacations, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

(I have never taken welfare or unemployment)

It may surprise you to learn that there has been a shortage of "viable jobs" in this country for at least 3 decades!!
The American capitalist system has worked because historically workers worked at jobs in industries that payed enough for the workers to be able to buy the goods they produced. That started coming to an end in the 70s and 80s when corporations decided that profit margins could be improved by moving manufacturing overseas, paying workers $5 a day, and paying to ship the goods back to the US. So good paying jobs for those with less than college degrees over the last 30 years have disappeared, and now many with college degrees are having a harder and harder time finding a job that will actually pay the bills. Never mind that the current generation is the first generation carrying huge student loan debts to get those degrees.
40% of Americans are on some kind of government assistance. 45% are on food stamps!! That alone should tell you how bad the availability of "viable jobs" really is. They simply do not exist, and unless we can get manufacturing back into the US we can look forward to a future of McJobs for everyone.

Sounds like my dad. He was an expert machinist at Southern Pacific Railway designing and building steam locomotives in the 30's. He flew troop carrier aircraft in WWII and then after the war he started his own business repairing and maintaining electric tools for contractors. He was a man of many skills and finally got his bachelors degree at the age of 55. He wound up at JPL designing spacecraft navigation systems and finally managing a major Cal Tech astronomical observatory. He was truly one of a rare breed.

My father was a master machinist, a master welder, a master mechanic, a master tool and die maker, a master model maker, and probably several other skills he gained over the years. As a result he was always employed, and at the top hourly rate. He was also a very skillful negotiator as a union steward, until he became disgusted with the thuggish tactics of the union bosses and quit the union (he could do that because his employer refused to cave and make the shop union only). He was so talented his employer gave him a salaried engineer's position, even though he'd never completed his degree. Hard to find men like that today.

Economics is a function of reality. If you cannot create enough food to sustain yourself you better learn to be more efficient or you won't survive. The further from direct contact with survival humanity becomes the more likely it is to forget the lessons of efficiency, tool making, production (work) then humans try to manipulate reality to meets its desires instead of its needs. To have time to do more than hunt and gather gave man time to think, to build, to create and his genius was unleashed. Those who would control others always push man back toward inefficiency by plundering him. Mao Tse Tung's efforts to eliminate the sparrows because he determined them a threat to production and his ability to tax caused the starvation of millions. He was concerned with his ability to plunder others. He succeeded in convincing millions of people to hunt the sparrows almost to extinction in the rural parts of the country by threatening the people with punishment if they failed and there always enforcers who are willing to harm others. The sparrows eat mostly insects which then multiplied beyond previous years and destroyed the crops on which humans depend. Unions produce the same results by demanding more wages than a job can produce (their reward is higher wages to tax) the jobs move further away and the products are shipped back to where the demand is. Production would remain closer to the demand if the use of forced economy was not employed. It will take a realization that the best way for humans to excel is to leave them alone, the demand for jobs will return at sustainable wages and there will be those who seek that employment. A free market no longer exists in America or anywhere. At best it is a mixed economy where someone might succeed against the pressure from those who would use force to ensure production. Slavery never works well.

The difference between the service industry and manufacturing industry is that the product has an intrinsic value that is retained and can be reused by the purchaser whereas the service industry has no intrinsic value. The only part of the service industry that has value is the business itself which is retained by the owner. Manufacturing generates overall wealth with tangible items whereas the service industry does not net overall wealth.

If the free market were left the !@#$%$#@! alone the good old "invisible hand" would take care of itself.But, with the manipulating, meddlesome egomaniacs of economics will likely continue to screw things up and your fears may well be realized.

Automation and robots have been available for making "things" more efficiently for a long time now. Straight personal service jobs are only relatively recently being heavily affected by automation and robots. Its all about the cost of automation/robots vs what available humans cost. The more regulations and taxes there are on human employment, the faster we will automate and eliminate those jobs. Fast food order takers are prime to be completely eliminated, since even current automation is capable of being much more efficient than humans. Its an exciting time of change, actually. Humans should accept that laziness will extract a big price in the future.

Trade has kept prices down because trade has been with underdeveloped and less entitled workers overseas. Thats why our government claims only 2% price inflation while they inflate the money supply by 10%. We should be seeing 8% price deflation !!!

I think a lot of the service jobs are ethereal and are subject to automation and robotization. Jobs involving handling of cash will disappear when we go cashless. Automated checkout in stores is becoming more and more prevalent, eliminating a lot of clerks. Your lawn could be mowed by an autonomous lawn mower. Its already watered by autonomous sprinkler systems. As robots get smarter and cheaper, more and more jobs will be eliminated. Personally, I would rather NOT have to deal with so many people doing jobs that automation and robots could do BETTER. Fast food ordering is ridiculously still done by humans- and not that efficiently either.

Automation is everywhere in manufacturing also

I think that government regulations are the cause of a lot of current jobs springing up. Paper pushing, dealing with complex laws and the litigious society. Health care is replete with useless work being done by humans to keep all sorts of records to prevent malpractice claims.

Sad but true.. My grandfather was a building contractor. Long ago he would go the union hiring hall because that was where the most skilled workers could be found. Things have changed and not for the better.

And who controls the education system? Now the ball is rolling.

Good point, Prof, but don't forget the role unions played in creating this mess. At one time, the progression from apprentice to journeyman to master of one's craft made a distinction in skill level that was reflected in increasing pay. Thanks to militant union action, this system of reward for achievement was replaced by one of reward for seniority. The longer you squat, the more you're paid, so there's no incentive to gain the skills employers are looking for.

I understand what the post is saying. Suppose the whole United States has to stand as Mulligan's Valley--as in Mississippi Valley--against the world? Would we not then re-insource all manufacturing that today happens overseas? I remind you all: in Atlas Shrugged, Mulligan's Valley/Galt's Gulch/Atlantis stood alone and in complete isolation. The only exception to this was Midas Mulligan occasionally obtaining certain goods not yet available within the valley. And he got them from Ragnar Danneskjold. He was that "like-minded customer in the United States who [paid Danneskjold] in gold." So if ever an exception "proved the rule," this did.

I don't deny that world trade has taken us very far. But nefarious actors can cut trade off. Pirates are an obvious offender. So would be an enemy power.

To the extent we do not have resourced-based jobs in this country, we remain vulnerable in case the Global Elite should decide to declare war against America.

Thanks for the reply. I have to agree.
When I wrote this, I was thinking of some what we call developing nations and some of the problems I saw there. I spent a bit of time in congested, highly populated urban areas where poverty was rampant. Significant portions of the population were struggling to attain the basic essentials and keep a roof over their head. The only way many could feed themselves was through a functionally unregulated economy where you could do whatever you wanted to make a couple of dollars. The resale of cheap products along with many "service jobs" such as bicycle taxis, hairdressers, store service employees was prevalent. In spite of this, there was a lot of poverty.

In smaller municipalities, away from the
larger cities, there was less poverty/destitution as well as less congestion. Mote jobs were tied to farming, resources and manufacturing of products. Less jobs such as hairdressers, store clerks, and miscellaneous item resale.

I think I see trends like this in the "developed world" and wonder if we are headed the way of many of the larger, congested urban centers of "developing nations."

I am beginning to think overpopulation is one of the main factors along with others.

Thoughts.

There are also millions of jobs going unfilled because of a lack of qualified applicants. Many of these jobs are trade and craft related and include machinists, welders, electronic technicians, plumbers and so on. Our education system has failed to produce these skills in sufficient numbers to satisfy the need.

The original post is nonsense. I would vote it down, but it deserves discussion because the errors are so widespread. I also grant that the original poster here (Jstork) meant well. The basic error is accepting the dichotomy between "manufacturing" and "service." While it can be a conceptual convenience, it is based on a philosophical error that Ayn Rand called "muscle mysticism" i.e., the idea that material objects deliver special powers. The truth is that all manufacturing is service. You could build your own automobile - and I know a guy who does: he owns a custom shop and comes to work in machines that he has built. But for most of us, it is easier, faster, and cheaper, just to buy one, i.e., to pay for the service of manufacturing.

There was a time when Bell Telephone and hundreds of other smaller firms hired thousands of operators. Now, it is all automated. We are our own telephone switching offices, setting up video conferences on our own phones.

The announcement that service sector jobs will eclipse manufacturing jobs is as old as the curves on the graphs. We have known this for decades.

And yet, if you look at the average American home workshop, you will find inexpensive yet sophisticated power tools: saws, routers, lathes, ... and tools that did not exist a lifetime ago: my wife is building a home security system with little computers and little cameras and little switches and gates and most of it without wires...

3-D printing is still just opening up. Each home can make what it wants -- unless, of course, you browse Amazon and find another home making one like it but better and cheaper. All commerce is service.