Is this the end of liberalism?

[Hygro]

We're talking about upgrading high school graduates into people who understand how to do everything they could do before, and then some.

Maybe my understanding of engineer is different. Where I live there's no shortage of money chasing engineers, who tend to start or join businesses in their early 20s. And the more of them there are, the more innovations they can pivot off from, which is increasing returns to scale.

 

[sophie]

Yeah. I don't buy the "if we give everybody free college education then they just become the same as a high school diploma". No, we get a population full of more educated more qualified more skilled more productive people. Which means we can make more stuff. Which means more money.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

 

[Hygro]

Especially when you consider the same logic going the other way states that real wages will increase if fewer people go to college.

 

[brennan]

I suspect Berkeley, California is not a normal place to be seeking a job as an engineer. I also want to hear the evidence that even Berkeley, California could productively employ an extra 150% of its current engineer population in the space of perhaps 4 to 6 years.

Making more stuff these days seems to involve selling insurance and fast food in the main; major economies are going through a productivity crisis; labour markets are hollowing out and the IT industry never produced the productivity gains it was supposed to.

The rising tide is not lifting all boats any more. It sells dodgy mortgages to some of them and then repossesses. Lays them off and moves overseas. Charges ever higher proportions of their wages as rent, squeezes them for life insurance and then refuses to pay out on a technicality. R > G

 

[Hygro]

The Bay Area works because you have a large population, a highly educated population, a lot of capital, and a lot of money. We're a textbook example of more engineers + the money to finance them = increasing returns to scale. Growth rates here are over 8%

A bubble is possible but it's not made worse by more engineers.

 

[brennan]

Is the economy of Berkeley, California an isolated system?

 

[ReindeerThistle]

So, this is not the end of liberalism.

All right.

 

[Hygro]

Is the economy of Berkeley, California an isolated system?

Well, given I already rolled it into the Bay Area....

Anyway, I'm sure you get the point. You can keep picking until you find your aha but it's not going to validate civman's claim that less education = higher wages.

So, this is not the end of liberalism.

All right.

Guess not.

 

[Zkribbler]

Is it too late to set out the definition?

1: the quality or state of being liberal
2:
a: often capitalized : a movement in modern Protestantism emphasizing intellectual liberty and the spiritual and ethical content of Christianity
b: a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard
c: a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties; specifically : such a philosophy that considers government as a crucial instrument for amelioration of social inequities (as those involving race, gender, or class)

Being that modern-day conservatives and plutocrats attempt to cloak themselves in the ideals of liberalism, I'd say that liberalism is quite healthy, thank you very much.

 

[brennan]

Anyway, I'm sure you get the point. You can keep picking until you find your aha but it's not going to validate civman's claim that less education = higher wages.

Since when did ad-nauseum goalpost moving make a point?

 

[Hygro]

The point being that educating more engineers is not going to be worse for growth or for general wages. Which has been my conversation while you bring up r > g. Yeah, the rent is too damn high. But the rent being too damn high doesn't mean we're better off having fewer engineers.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I think the answer has been given or at least hinted at. I presume the assumption is that people will always want stuff as long as they have money, which is fair enough. Increase someone's income and you will almost definitely see an increase in spending, albeit with some diminishing returns. However, there is also a macroeconomic multiplier effect, in that giving some people more money will cause them to spend more, which gives other people more money, causing them to spend more, and so on. When people are buying stuff, you need people to make stuff. When you pay people to make stuff, they will have money to spend on buying stuff - it's again a cycle that goes on until all the unemployed engineers are employed to make stuff and you need more engineers to make more stuff to continue the cycle.

So it comes back to the idea that barring supply shocks (which are usually quite obvious), the fact that a few hundred engineers are out of a job is probably down to a demand-side problem. People are not spending money either because there is a recession so there's not enough money going around to be spent, or because they are withholding spending for whatever reason, typically in anticipation of a recession. So to answer the question, the demand can come from solving the demand-side problem, which usually involves giving people money to spend.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I agree.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Well, it took us just 24 pages to figure out that liberalism isn't ending, and probably won't end any time soon.

I suppose that thread should be locked and all the participants should forget they even posted? For the good of their sanity? I mean, guys, you just spend 10 pages discussing what to do with 300 engineers. That's not very healthy, at least to me.

 

[Akka]

Yeah. I don't buy the "if we give everybody free college education then they just become the same as a high school diploma". No, we get a population full of more educated more qualified more skilled more productive people. Which means we can make more stuff. Which means more money.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Considering the increasing demands I see on the work market, I actually would agree with the "college education for all means they are valued as high school diploma".
But the point is, a more educated people means a healthier society. It's not about the money or the market, it's about making good decisions, not being as easily swept by propaganda and populism, and being able to recognize the problems which need to be fixed.

 

[Flying Pig]

Yeah. I don't buy the "if we give everybody free college education then they just become the same as a high school diploma". No, we get a population full of more educated more qualified more skilled more productive people. Which means we can make more stuff. Which means more money.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

That argument holds if and only if we give everyone a college (university?) education and everyone ends up with the same qualification - hopefully, what it would mean is that the standard for admission and graduation are the same, but financial costs don't act as an extra admissions requirement.

The issue is that part of what a university degree does is proves that you're clever - regardless of what you actually learned at university, it's assumed that only clever people can be admitted and then pass the course. If we have vastly more people entering and so passing the course, we need to be careful with the grading to ensure that (for example) a first-class degree still puts you in the top 10% of people, rather than the top 30%.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah. I don't buy the "if we give everybody free college education then they just become the same as a high school diploma".

Yeah, saying that is almost like admitting that college education only exists for gatekeeping purposes.

I mean, guys, you just spend 10 pages discussing what to do with 300 engineers. That's not very healthy, at least to me.

Exactly. The obvious answer is make a Great Engineer, of course.

 

[Sommerswerd]

a more educated people means a healthier society. It's not about the money or the market, it's about making good decisions, not being as easily swept by propaganda and populism, and being able to recognize the problems which need to be fixed.

This.

Yeah, saying that is almost like admitting that college education only exists for gatekeeping purposes.

*gasp* They're onto us!! Initiate operation Diddy dash! Repeat! This is not a drill!!


Link to video.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Exactly. The obvious answer is make a Great Engineer, of course.

Oh, but see, in order to maintain the buildings that provide all the Engineer slots, we need more Merchant specialists, which require scientific advances, ergo, more Scientist slots, which needs cash.

Therefore we must invade Canada and use the looted cash to run the slider at 100% permanently.

 

[sophie]

Considering the increasing demands I see on the work market, I actually would agree with the "college education for all means they are valued as high school diploma".
But the point is, a more educated people means a healthier society. It's not about the money or the market, it's about making good decisions, not being as easily swept by propaganda and populism, and being able to recognize the problems which need to be fixed.

That argument holds if and only if we give everyone a college (university?) education and everyone ends up with the same qualification - hopefully, what it would mean is that the standard for admission and graduation are the same, but financial costs don't act as an extra admissions requirement.

The issue is that part of what a university degree does is proves that you're clever - regardless of what you actually learned at university, it's assumed that only clever people can be admitted and then pass the course. If we have vastly more people entering and so passing the course, we need to be careful with the grading to ensure that (for example) a first-class degree still puts you in the top 10% of people, rather than the top 30%.

Except not. A university degree isn't just a piece of paper. You're adding 4 more years of training to your workforce. Four more years of learning how to do research, of learning how to articulate your idea cogently, of learning how to collaborate to accomplish tasks, or learning how to stay motivated and see tasks through to completion. Moreover it's 4 years of specialized training: 4 years of learning how to do accounting, of learning how to form business strategies, or learning chemistry, biology, marketing, etc. Those are tangible skills that improve the workforce. That makes them more productive. It's like being against making literacy compulsory: "If everybody learns how to read, then knowing how to read would be a useless skill!". No. People knowing how to read makes your workforce more efficient. Which means you make more stuff. Which means your economy grows.

It's the same here. Having an extra 4 years of education makes your workforce more efficient. Which means you make more stuff. Which means your economy grows. Which means more jobs and higher wages. Perhaps, as people always seem to follow up with "we need more trade-school education in high school", the problem is people are still thinking about the economy in terms of Modernist industrialization? Expanding the economy is more people making cars and planes and other hard materials. But our economy has really shifted over the last couple decades into one built around services and ideas. It's no longer about the people making a t-shirt. It's about the people who come up with a t-shirt design that people want to buy. It's about the people who create a software platform that enables people to buy t-shirts more easily. It's about the people who come up with a streamlined system to efficiently deliver that t-shirt to your doorstep. That kind of stuff requires more specialized education.

 

[Akka]

Seems you missed the point of my answer.