Re:Giving money directly to poor people (2013)
by simonh on Saturday April 21, 2018 @09:30AM
(#16891357)
So if all the qualified people for a job are employed, and I want to employ one more, all I have to do is offer more money?
All that happens then is that a suitable applicant quits their lesser paid job and takes mine, but at a market level that just shuffles the problem around. There's still an unfilled vacancy. It doesn't matter how much money you offer, the invisible hand of the market can't magically conjure up qualified experienced applicants out of thin air.
This is the problem with this kind of blinkered market forces fundamentalism. The market isn't instantaneous, there isn't an endless supply of every product or service depending only on price, to fill every need. The real world is lumpy, and slow, inelastic and constrained.
All that happens then is that a suitable applicant quits their lesser paid job and takes mine, but at a market level that just shuffles the problem around. There's still an unfilled vacancy. It doesn't matter how much money you offer, the invisible hand of the market can't magically conjure up qualified experienced applicants out of thin air.
This is the problem with this kind of blinkered market forces fundamentalism. The market isn't instantaneous, there isn't an endless supply of every product or service depending only on price, to fill every need. The real world is lumpy, and slow, inelastic and constrained.