Verizon: union win

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Tue Aug 22 18:08:32 PDT 2000



>Carl Remick wrote:
>
>> > >BTW, one figure I do find intriguing is the "Paul and Percival
>>> >Goodman ... [estimate] that just five percent of the work ... being
>>> >done ... would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing, and
>>> >shelter." By my reckoning that estimate is now 35 years old. Are
>>> >there any more recent estimates along these lines?
>>>
>>> To figure that out, you'd have to "fart around with economic
>>>statistics."
>>>
>>> Doug
>>
>>And the answer is?
>
>Look over <ftp://146.142.4.23/pub/news.release/ocwage.txt> and tell
>me what you think.
>
>Doug

For starters, you can certainly liquidate the 98,240 "public relations specialists and publicity writers" and not impair anyone's quality of life. And, what the hell, you can also trash-compact the 54,590 "economists, including market research analysts" w/o causing the wheels to fall off civilization. Sticking to the broad classifications, looks like 26.9% of workers belong in the category of actually useful -- i.e., "agricultural" (1.3% of employment) and "production" (25.6%). Beyond that ... lessee, the half million or so "physicians and surgeons" sure come in handy, along with assorted other healthcare types. And I'm sure the several millions listed as some sort of teacher aren't all timeserving assholes. Hmm, on the fly it's pretty difficult to ascertain the full complement of parasites with certainty, but then again, we're looking at *actually existing* work categories. I am quite certain that the future happiness of humankind will depend on divvying up necessary chores in a markedly different way than they are now assigned.

Carl

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