Sunday Train: Richard Florida and the End of the Automobile Age | 26 comments (26 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

the Automobile Age (none / 0)

There's not that much difference between Fordism and web-developer-ism. Temporary workers with no benefits, low pay, and zero job security, using standardized methods to make routine changes to the thousands (millions?) of commercial web sites out there...

by asdf on Tue Aug 17th, 2010 at 10:21:43 PM EST

Re: the Automobile Age (4.00 / 2)

Under Fordism, they were permanent employees organized into unions with some real, albeit limited, power, with pension and benefits as the quid pro quo for eliminating the inconvenience of penalty rates for overtime.

That would seem a pretty sweet deal to the web-developer assembly line workers. There the inconvenience of penalty rates for overtime is more often fixed by paying pro forma hours with completion of task required to hold onto the job, irrespective of whether actual time required is overtime or not.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Wed Aug 18th, 2010 at 01:53:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: the Automobile Age (4.00 / 2)

Ford paid well enough that his workers could afford to buy his cars. That meant that the could also afford housing and food. That meant that every job at Ford led to three or four jobs elsewhere in the economy. Web developer cottage industry workers probably don't generate the same multiplier effect. Do you have any numbers on that?

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Wed Aug 18th, 2010 at 02:48:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The macreconomic ... (none / 1)

... multiplier has dropped substantially, largely because of the substantial increase in the import share of total consumption. I don't know off the top of my head of industry specific studies of multiplier effects, but there may be something by income level that could be tied back to industry level studies of income distribution.

So, no, I don't know but its a great question. As far as I can tell, Richard Florida gets his causality from rough correlation of a "Knowledge class" that does not seem to be very clearly defined independent of his line of argument.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Wed Aug 18th, 2010 at 03:13:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The macreconomic ... (none / 0)

The subject would seem ripe for some macro economist to investigate.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Wed Aug 18th, 2010 at 08:27:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Sunday Train: Richard Florida and the End of the Automobile Age | 26 comments (26 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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