>We were pretty thick, but we couldn't possibly mistake the message.
>This was our punishment for working too hard. The Whyalla steel mill
>employed thousands at the time. I'd say the mill had about three
>times as many workers as it could possibly need and the entire
>workforce conspired to keep it that way. That sort of sensible
>solidarity seems to be dying.
Bill has given a wonderful account of what is known in economics as "the theory of the lump of labour," the notion that there's only so much work to go around and if the workers don't share it amongst themselves then some will go without. The economists have told us incessently that the theory is a fallacy. Now that the economists have their way and "that sort of sensible solidarity seems to be dying," guess what? There's not enough to go around.
This shouldn't be taken to mean that the theory of the lump of labour is not a fallacy -- it is, "in theory". It's only that the economics within which the lump of labour is a fallacy is itself fallacious. Now two wrongs don't make a right and two fallacies don't make a true statement but the real world fallacy of the contextual economics renders the real world truth status of the lump of labour theory indeterminate.
In the 1940s there was an ad campaign for Camels claiming that more doctors smoked Camels than any other brand. Well, the Sandwichman says that "more economists mock the lump-of-labor than any other fallacy."
The Sandwichman