I spent a week in Manhattan with a friend of mine last month. He went for business. I went for fun. But fun in the Big Apple is not cheap. It was my first time in New York and I had no intention of buying anything; I hate souvenirs and knick knacks. But after only a few hours in the city it became apparent that nothing there is free. You want to use the restroom? Then you either pay the man squirting soap and handing out towels or you can contribute to the spread of avoidable, communicable diseases. I washed my hands.
While on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, the tour guide pointed out that most of the buildings in Manhattan appear pretty much as they did 50 to 100 years ago, but that back then they were mostly used as factories. Almost all of New York City’s jobs were in manufacturing then. Today, New York City has almost no manufacturing jobs. Nearly every job there is a service job -- from the Wall Street magnates to the soap squirters.
I realize this is happening all over the country. I remember Dr. Kearl in Econ 110 saying that about 80% of US jobs are now service jobs. So that got me to thinking: is that a bad thing?
In America we consume! That's what we do. We make stuff too, just not very much.
The question I ask myself and you doesn't have so much to do with our pattern of hyper-consumption itself, but with the mindset and even the morality of consuming so much more than we produce.
Is our economy inherently unstable because we don’t actually make any of the (tangible) products we consume? Or should we keep doing everything in our power to outsource all the “sweaty” jobs until all Americans have service jobs -- and high paying ones at that? I'm not asking for a lengthy economics lesson or for you to choose between isolationism and free trade. I'm curious to know what you think this current economic system says about our American culture and where it's headed, be it good or bad. What do you think?
- Michael Williams
40 comments:
I think that it would be advantageous for us to better utilize our own physical resources (such as crops, oil, etc) but that we should also take advantage of the demand that is there for service oriented jobs.
America was an example to the rest of the world back in the 1800's and 1900's for our ability to mass produce products and to grow more crops then any where else in the world. Now due to labor laws and other governmental action, we are unable to produce products as cheap as the rest of the world. We are now better able to consume products then to make them. This is just the natural product of our development and improved labor laws. The rest of the world is more than happy to produce products that can then be used by Americans.
I think it would not be a bad thing to be a nation which is based on service related jobs and consumerism, countries from which the US imports good depend on the dollars. I say it is best to do what a country is best at, and clearly the US is a great service provider! I think the questions becomes one of economics versus environment, if the US is not drilling for oil and cutting down tress, and has the money to import the goods we need, we can save our all important natural resources, and still provide for our needs.
Where we are right now is fine and dandy, but we need to accept that as the world gets more caught up with us (and in turn, more competitive), we will need to produce more. Look at oil. The world got more competitive, and other countries started competing for oil, and the prices sky-rocketed. I know there are a lot of other reasons for the oil price hike, but competition is one of the major reasons. And besides, the less we are dependant of others for anything, the better. Right?
I think we should use our physical resources instead of relying on other countries for our consumption. However, I think these service jobs are good for those who are not otherwise qualified for more "white-collar" positions. They are contributing to our economy in an honest and valuable way. We need these positions. We need to balanced though and in regards to our lack of production, we need to do as much as we can to be self-reliant.
I think our current economic situation is a product of our nationalistic view that We are the best and therefore we are too good to make the clothes we buy at the Gap, etc. I'm not saying there is no respect for those who do perform labor intensive jobs, farmer especially, but I think our national arrogance and the evolution of the American dream from being providing a nice life for your family, to being richer than everyone else, has a lot to do with our current consumer society.
As a society I think we need to be more cautious of the future. Sure everything is going well now (as we rely on foreign resources), but what happens if foreign relations sour and we are left without those necessary resources?
As one of the most powerful nations in the world, it is interesting to see how so much of our power relies on the continually good relations with supplier nations.
I think it's great that is US has such a large percentage of service jobs. People are living the American dream, making money with their businesses and in turn returning that money to the economy as they buy themselves a comfortable life. But how long with this comfortable life last if we reach a point when we don't have the necessary resources to run our service industries. My point is, is that the US needs to start looking for more internal resource and production options.
I think that it is a great asset to have the ability to do some things for oneself. We have become so dependent as a country on other people and countries to provide us with the things we want and in the end, even the things we desperately need. We get a lot of our food from other countries, our clothes are all made overseas, we always talk about how independent we are as a nation yet we don't purchase local goods and services. Thus we are stimulating other countries economies through our mass consumerism for the most part and very rarely our own.
We will always need some manufacturing and physical laboring jobs. But if nobody here wants the jobs why is it bad to outsource them to those in other countries who do? The economy just keeps getting bigger as we send jobs over the border and our role as Americans evolves in that economy.
I find it interesting that several people here believe that America can produce more oil, and that it is somehow related to this problem.
Just for the record, America has been drastically increasing its use of foreign oil since 1970 when American production peaked (it has been going down ever since). Since the early nineties, we have been importing more than we produce, and in recent years, we have been producing somewhere around one-third of our use. This is due to the depleting resources, and American production will continue to drop.
The price of oil is not due to other nations stepping up to compete, it is caused by American production STEPPING DOWN.
Well, our country likes to think it could operate just fine without the rest of the world, but that will never be true again. We need other countries to produce the things we do not, and we need international markets to buy the luxuries we produce. And we need sweat shop laborers that we consider unethical within our borders.
That's just how our economy has grown.
While I don't think that being majorly service based is a terrible thing, I do wonder what would happen to Americans if there was some sort of global catastrophe that prevented us from importing things from other countries. Do we even have the skills and/or the facilities to sustain ourselves as a nation in a time of crisis?
There will always be industry in America, whether it's farming, livestock, mining, energy or any number of things that are more or less necessary. However, the more efficient we become with those industries, the fewer people need to do those jobs. Service is a good just like an ear of corn or 50 kW of electricity, and service jobs are becoming more and more necessary, especially with the ever-increasing numbers of highly skilled people on the job market. It's actually better for us and other world markets alike, to specialize in skills we are good at, import and export, or essentially trade with with people for goods or services that they are better-skilled at giving. So America is becoming more service oriented? Good.
As technology advances, the need for actual people to do service jobs declines. Remember in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when Charlie's dad loses his job because there's a machine to do his job now. But, there will always be jobs that simply cannot be done by machines, which means service jobs will be around for a while. As someone who has worked a service job before, I can only hope that people who do those jobs will be treated with more respect than I was. At least they had the initiative to get a job and contribute to the economy!
I think we should take advantage of our resources we have. And as for jobs of service that nobody wants, it makes sense for the US to seek elsewhere that also performs cheaper labor than it would cost here to produce goods.
It seems to have more to do with our own laziness as Americans. I don't want to come out and attack Americans for being "lazy" but I think this trend shows that. Not many people want to do jobs that require you to get "dirty". People want jobs that provide the greatest amount of compensation for the least amount of work. Service jobs generally lend to themselves to such a philosophy. Low effort resulting in monetary rewards.
One thing that struck me when I first came to the U.S 3 years ago was while water melon was only 59 cent per pound, one tray of prepared fruit (which contains just few piece of fruits or so) cost around five dollars. I thought to myself, if the price that I have to pay for service was that much more than the original cost of the product itself, I could do it myself. I'd rather spend my five or ten precious minutes to save just a few bucks.
Americans are not only in for the trend of shifting all the hard labors to "outsourcing", but also getting lazier and lazier in serving themselves in the very basic daily life. That is when the service industry gets into the picture and dominates the American lifestyle.
I think that we will be able to survive having more service jobs and that it will continue to increase, but I'm not sure we'll enjoy the circumstances of our living in this style. I imagine we'll have to pay a lot more for the services we're enjoying and I worry that the lowest classes in the nation won't be able to keep up with that.
I think that inherently we are also a society of want. To me, our consumption is based more on our want... it is unfortunate that we want so much, that we are 1. forced to produce so much and 2. put into debt.
In light of today's financial debacle, I found this interesting blog by a UC Berkley professor-check out this post. The comments from others are also very interesting
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/03/are-we-heading-for-another-great_5588.html
I think we are going to be better consuming products than producing them. The worry comes when trade between other countries gets bad, we don't know what the future holds, but when things go down hill are we still going to be a consuming people or will we hit a dead end? We are so dependent on others, I think we could work a little more at depending on ourselves as a nation. I also agree with Kevin (above), it seriously is unfortunate that we WANT so much.
Since we do not know the future, we have no idea where the economy is headed. However, we do have control over our individual financial situations. We need to be aware that anything is possible. As consumers, we need to restrain from "needing" every product that catches our eye. As for America, I believe we are better consumers than producers. Consuming is what we do best. But is we are not careful, we may have to fill the role of producers sometime in the near future. We should take the time today to learn how to use our resources to prevent problems that are unpredictable.
An econ major could probably answer this question better than me, but I think what is happening is the world is creating a global work place. Those people in New York, 50 to 100 years ago, probably all lived on the same blog, or at least in the same city, from CEO to the janitor. Now, most corporations have some employee out of state, if not even out of country. Is it a bad thing? If you think sharing finacial powers is a bad thing, then yes, because that is what is beginning to happen. The US is spending, and places like China and India are starting to profit from it.
If we could balance our economy between consumption and production, i think that would be ideal. It would be beneficial for us to focus more of our resources on production and service related jobs, but to go to one extreme or the other will always leave us unbalanced.
Isn't our consumption production? The more we consume the more products we need, the more products needed, the more production needed. Why is America bad for creating jobs in third world countries? I agree that conditions in these factories should be humane, but the opportunity cost of an american sewing a shirt or building a computer is so much higher than it is for a philipino or bulgarian that basic economics dictate it be that way.
I've worked in a production job for over 10 years now and i do see the value of keeping some of these jobs here, but I don't think America should feel bad for consumption, it would be far more harmful to the international community and our own economy if we curtailed our comsuption.
I do think that America consumes a lot, and it would be good if we could try to better take advantage of the physical resources we have here. But I think that our high amount of service jobs can be a good thing. I think it shows that people are becoming more educated and this is creating a need for more jobs outside of agriculuture, etc...I agree that they provide a valuable service that helps keep our country going.
Two signs that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are upon us:
1) After 9/11 President Bush counsels "go shopping."
2) The 2008 Economic Stimulus Package intended to stimulate the U.S. economy by "going shopping."
Enough of this going shopping. We'd all be better off if that money went into savings instead.
Take that $300 incentive and add another $300 a year for the next 50 years -- at 10% interest you'll end up with $419,307.07.
I am concerned with the trend of increased service jobs combined with diminishing production based jobs. Teddy Roosevelt and early presidents inspired us by asking us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. That's not something we can do these days sometimes. As our trade deficit climbs and the world continues to close the gap, we need to make an effort to continue to be producers. We should try to better balance our imports and exports - many of these service jobs serve us nationally and the money is used ti import goods. America should take advantage of our highly trained workforce and our acclaimed university system. Most of the most influential, important inventions in world history came from the USA, everything form the light bulb to the A-bomb. With less and less people becoming engineers and manufacturers, we might see some of the best inventions of the next century come from Asia, lending them more and more power.
I was in the Dominican Republic this past summer in a really poverty stricken town, and most people asked me when I came back, "Does it just disgust you now to notice all the luxuries that people take for granted?" I would have expected myself to feel this way, but I actually feel the opposite. I just feel like we have so many wonderful beautiful things, and we should love and embrace them since we are lucky enough to have them; there are so many people who would never dream of having those luxuries. I think that the fact the the US is the way it is is criticized so much because of our lifestyles, which I am not saying is all wrong, but I just thought I'd share that I have also had the opposite perspective after seeing all the poverty and manual labor that goes on in other countries. We should just be grateful and love that we are so blessed.
Good thing... Bad thing... I'm not quite sure at the moment. I do think that greed and unsatiable wanting of status and wealth, something that may or may not fuel some business, is a bad thing. I have heard that some companies will lay off tons of people right before the holidays, only to look for those positions the next month. Suspicions are that companies will save millions that way because they won't have to pay bonuses or give them benefits... this could be a huge misunderstanding on my part, but if that's the reason why, that's definitely a bad thing.
America does consume a lot but let's face it, America is not that great at its production (look at American cars, for example). At the moment, America is fine consuming more than producing. Her only worry (as a couple of you mentioned) is entangled with her foreign relations. If trade with other producer-countries, like Japan, fails, what next? America needs to find a way to combat such a dilema if it should ever crop up.
so true. most, if not all products we own were manufactured outside the u.s. we've always, however, known that if something is made in the u.s.a. and has that stamp of approval, then it is of better quality. so are we allowing our level of products to be lowered? i think we are. we are settling for mediocre items. BUT, we are also supporting other countries who are producing them--this then can be a good thing. Who knows how this will effect America in the future, but we seem to be doing ok for now.
Although there are many jobs I feel we should outsource, I worry more about the money leaving our country than the jobs. America has such a high number of educated people so we need jobs that require such knowledge. However we are sending billions of dollars out of this country to China, Taiwan, and Indonesia etc. We need to keep all the jobs here as possible so we can keep all the money here as possible.
i'd hate to choose one over the other because i feel if i choose the lesser of two evils, i'd still be choosing evil. Not to say that anything is evil. wait, i'm just rambling. america has becoming a country of luxury and comfort. our wealth is so large, we have no idea what to do with it. so let's just spend it.
I think our current economic situation resembles American culture to some aspect because it reflects that we are becoming more irresponsible with our finances.
I agree with some of the previous comments about how we need to take the money we have and start saving it (as individuals and as a nation). It can't be that hard to relax on all of our "consuming", and start putting money away in savings.
I think that our economy is going to be just fine if the government gets out of our way. With all this Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stuff, it shows that all of these loans given out made for this disaster. Stop giving loans to people that can't afford them. Not everyone deserves everything. You need to work for things. All these service jobs will be fine, but we need to start drilling off-shore and on-shore. When we have our own oil, and not the Middle East's, we will be fine.
Personally from being so involved on the clothing business America simply cant compete with the prices overseas. T-shirt are produced for 1.50 in Bangladesh where the same T-shirt will cost you 4.50 here in the US. we cant compete now and we never will. Americans are not willing to do the sweat jobs for such cheap labor and business owners are not willing to pay more just so the label can read "made in the USA."
I agree that America is becoming increasingly outsourced. I do think there should be a good balance between manufacturing jobs and service jobs here in the United States. Perhaps part of the reason the stock market recently has been on a slippery downward slope is because our economy is not well balanced between manufacturing and service jobs. It is very true about New York that everything is much more expensive there which also makes one wonder why it is more expensive to live in one part of the country than another part of the country.
Maybe we aren't going far enough?
If we decreased our government subsidies of agriculture we could substantially improve the lives of the world. For example, we are in part responsible for the continued struggle of African farmers because we subsidize our agriculture to the extent that it destroys emerging markets.
I don't think it's bad that we've moved to a service economy, we need to move even further. Innovation is our life's blood.
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