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Nov 152012
 

3 November 2012, Clayton Christensen, whose earlier works I have found inspirational and illuminating, published an article in the New York Times—”A Capitalist’s Dilemma, Whoever Wins on Tuesday“—that starts with a reasonable premise, and veers hopelessly off course.

To Wit: “Whatever happens on Election Day, Americans will keep asking the same question: When will this economy get better?”

Fair enough. That is a very reasonable question, and it is a very reasonable expectation that Americans will keep asking it.

So far, so good.

Then, we get this:

“The Fed has been injecting more and more capital into the economy…”

<facepalm>

The Fed has been pumping more and more money into the economy. The value of money is measured by the ratio of units in circulation to the value of stuff. If the number of units in circulation increases faster than the quantity, value, or both of stuff, then prices rise.

Capital is the long-term means of production: drill presses, trucks, robots, etc.. The Fed doesn’t have any of that, and Fed governors are not in a position to command others to make such things available.

The Fed lends money to the US Treasury, buys toxic assets from commercial banks, and regulates banks. It isn’t a hardware store.

Now, if one is sitting on a lot of money that one can convert into capital assets, then one might adopt the financier’s habit of referring to that money as capital, but one should avoid conflating fiat inflation with the means of production.

“And yet cash hoards in the billions are sitting unused on the pristine balance sheets of Fortune 500 corporations.”

Firms are supposed to keep pools of cash as a kind of self-insurance policy against slow economic times. We call this ‘working capital’. When the future is even scarier than normal, the prudent thing to do is to hold more cash. The ‘Fiscal Cliff’, Pres. Obama’s political rhetoric expressing open disdain for those who are wealthier than he, the unknowable effects of Obamacare, the ongoing transition away from a capital/labor economy toward a service/knowledge economy, and the specter of another decade of ‘Bush’s war’ are enough to render all expectations of the future little more than random bets and wild guesses.

And, no one gets fired for playing it safe. So, until things settle down, executives play it safe.

“Billions in capital is also sitting inert and uninvested at private equity funds.”

Does Prof. Christensen believe that fund managers have piles of big, canvas sacks with dollar signs on them, filled with cash… like Scrooge McDuck or the dapper little fellow from the Monopoly™ game?!?

The money is invested somewhere, most likely US Treasury debt, because the US Treasury has a reputation of always paying its debts… even if it has to print more money to do so. In these highly uncertain times, the safest bet is the safest bet.

“Empowering innovations create jobs, because they require more and more people who can build, distribute, sell[,] and service these products.”

Sadly… no, no, no, and no.

Build: Factories are increasingly automated, and when meat-that-talks is needed, one hires labor where it is cheap; i.e. Latin America, Southeast Asia, and increasingly Sub-Saharan Africa.

Distribute: DHL, FedEx, UPS, already have that pretty well covered.

Sell: Amazon.com.

Service: What is that? Throw it away and buy a new one.

“[T]he Toyota Prius hybrid is a marvelous product.”

Except that [o]nly 35 percent of hybrid car owners bought a hybrid again when they purchased a new vehicle in 2011.

“‘[E]fficiency’ innovations… almost always reduce the net number of jobs…”

This one is spot-on. It is unfortunate that Christensen did not make it the centerpiece of his analysis.

“The economic machine is out of balance and losing its horsepower. But why?”

Peter Drucker answered this question in Post-Capitalist Society, which was written nearly twenty years ago, and reads today like a play-by-play account of what happened in the 1990s and 2000s.

[Reread the sentence above, click on the link, and buy the book. You can thank me later.]

Also, the total value of goods manufactured in the USA continues to exceed the value of goods manufactured in China.

The scorpion’s sting is in the tail. Toward the end of the article, Christensen states, “We can use capital with abandon now, because it’s abundant and cheap. But we can no longer waste education, subsidizing it in fields that offer few jobs.”

No one knows where the ‘jobs’ of the future will be. Social engineering always fails. In the 1960s, it was plastics; in the 1980s, software development; in the 1990s, Dot.Com… No one knows what it will be next decade.

“[T]he [capital gains tax] rate should be reduced the longer the investment is held — so that, for example, tax rates on investments held for five years might be zero — and rates on investments held for eight years might be negative.”

It might have made sense a century ago, when technology changed slowly, to make it costly to change plans quickly in response to new information, but Christensen’s advice in a highly dynamic—even chaotic—integrated global economy would create an incentive to keep sub-optimal plans running beyond their use-by dates.

“Federal tax receipts from capital gains comprise only a tiny percentage of all United States tax revenue.”

This suffers from two fatal flaws. 1) The universe does not end at the US border. 2) If capital gains represent a trivial portion of the federal budget, then eliminate the cost of collecting and enforcing them and call for their repeal. Leave the money in the owners’ hands, rather than seize it at gunpoint, if it is hardly worth collecting.

“It’s true that some of the richest Americans have been making money with money — investing in efficiency innovations rather than investing to create jobs. They are doing what their professors taught them to do, but times have changed.”

Indeed, times have changed, but that does not mean that this time is different, as Christensen seems to assume. We are in the latter stages of a transition as profound as the 18th Century Industrial Revolution, from a capital/labor division—in which semi-literate proletarians drive industrial machines—to a knowledge/service division, in which skilled workers are the ‘capital’ and are not interchangeable.

However, the wealthy will invest where they expect the greatest opportunities are, as has been the case since the Renaissance a half millennium ago. When princes, presidents, and parliamentarians create uncertainty, the wealthy will hunker down and wait until circumstances stabilize.

Christensen started with the premise that the president and the Fed do not have the power to fix things, and then concluded that the IRS does have such power.

This conclusion is counterintuitive. An alternative would be for presidents, princes, and parliamentarians to enforce transparency, and otherwise to mind their knitting, rather than concern themselves with affairs that are beyond their abilities.

Invest accordingly.

Prof. Evans

Dec 022011
 

MSNBC is running an article entitled “Nine Jobs That Humans May Lose to Robots” that lists nine professions that are becoming increasingly automated:

  • Astronauts
  • Babysitters
  • Drivers
  • Journalists
  • Lawyers and Paralegals
  • Pharmacists
  • Rescuers
  • Soldiers
  • Store Clerks

We can expect to see more articles like this as we continue the transition that began in the final decades of the 20th Century, from an economic order driven by capital and labor to one that is driven by knowledge and service, in which the capitalist no longer can be caricatured by a Dickensian factory owner, but instead by Scott Adams’s Dilbert, a highly talented employee with specialized skills, as Peter Drucker explains in his 1993 Post-Capitalist Society.

Today, nearly a quarter-century on, we can look back to see how accurate Drucker’s predictions were, as Massachusetts Institute of Technology economists, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, do in their 2011 Race against the Machine, and except for the specific technologies that Drucker cites, he was spot-on.

If you can do your job from your sofa, then that sofa can be within walking distance of your employer’s headquarters, across town, or in Jakarta. If a robot, a piece of software, or someone in Jakarta can do your job, and you are in the Global North/West, then this would be a very good time to start thinking about a career change.

In general, you have two options:

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

There is no silver bullet here. All you can do is follow your heart and heed no one’s counsel but your own. The first few times out, you probably will fall flat on your face, but console yourself with the knowledge that 95% of science is wrong, meaning that most hypotheses are rejected during the experimentation phase. However, that 5% that works is where the frontiers of knowledge and experience are expanded.

Some platitudes might be useful, but feel free to replace them with your own:

  • Follow your heart, and the money will take care of itself.
  • Set aside 20% of what you spend on equipment, and six months’ rent, so that you can cover your bills during slow periods.
  • If you create texts, music, videos, software, etc., give your work away for free.
  • Network as if your life depended on it, and remember that it is a sad dog that wag its own tail.
  • Always be learning, and be prepared to change product lines or career tracks about once every five years.

If you won the lottery, what would you do with your day? You undoubtedly are not the only human alive who is driven by whatever your answer is. There is your business plan. Don’t draft revenue projections until you’ve made several sales; you cannot predict your cash flows, if you’ve never had any. And remember that innovation is what has not been done before. If the people around you think that your idea is ludicrous, then you’re probably onto something good; if others think that your plan makes sense, then the idea is already past its expiration date, and it is already part of the background noise.

You will make mistakes and have regrets. You’ll get knocked down; get up again, and don’t let anything keep you down.

Crafts

By ‘crafts’ I mean anything that must be done locally, including landscaping, plumbing, home repair, nursing, firefighting, automotive maintenance, etc. If the idea of an activity’s being outsourced overseas is absurd, then it is a craft.

You don’t have to be a hairdresser or manicurist; you can own the shop and hire hairdressers and manicurists. John D. Rockefeller famously said that he would prefer to have 1% of the money earned by 100 others than 100% that he had to earn himself.


Whichever route you choose, do not let yourself get lulled into the false security of a ‘job’. No such thing as a job exists, as is easy to see, if one considers that, if one normally works 40 hours per week, and then starts pulling ten hours of overtime per week, one does not report that one has 1.25 jobs; similarly, if one’s schedule were cut from 40 to 30 hours per week, one would not complain that one had 3/4ths of a job.

If you measure the value of your time in dollars per hour (or euros, or pesos, or yen, or yuan, or shekels, or lira, or dinar, or whatever), then you are saying that each hour of your time is as valuable as every other hour, which means that whatever you do to earn that money is ripe for automation.

If you earn $10 or $20 per hour driving a cash register, keep an eye open for self-checkout stations to be installed where you work. Ditto paralegals and bookkeepers, secretaries and executive assistants, etc.

The global economy is increasingly integrated, and borders are fading fictions. There is a cost for every benefit, and an opportunity hiding within every cost.

And… the machines are lurking… watching… biding their time… Make your peace with them.

Invest accordingly.

Prof. Evans

Nov 182011
 

From Peter Drucker’s Post-Capitalist Society (1993) [page numbers are from the paperback edition]:

p.3

We are clearly still in the middle of this transformation; indeed, if history is any guide, it will not be completed until 2010 or 2020.”

In other words, that really is the light at the end of the tunnel, and not an oncoming train.


pp.4, 5 & 6

That the new society will be both a non-socialist and a post-capitalist society is practically certain… The market will surely remain the effective integrator of economic activity. But as a society, the developed countries have also already moved into post-capitalism. It is fast becoming a society of new “classes,” with a new central resource at its core… Instead of capitalists and proletarians, the classes of the post-capitalist society are knowledge workers and service workers.”

All you old-school Prius socialists and throwback anarchocapitalists, just… stop. You’re both right, and you’re both wrong.


p.8

Value is now created by ‘productivity’ and ‘innovation’, both applications of knowledge to work… The social challenge of the post-capitalist society will, however, be the dignity of the second class in post-capitalist society: the service workers.”

This is what all the ruckus is about, and not Marxists versus Objectivists, both of whom stare fixedly at the 19th Century in the rearview mirror.

The most radical thing you can do to help The People and to bring dignity to service workers, would be to start a service work firm, hire disenfranchised service workers, distribute the shares among them, and find clients to contract their service jobs to you. Then, let the service workers run the show and create opportunities for advancement among the ranks. In this way, your, e.g., janitorial workers will have seized the means of production, and they will have a chance of rising above their current stations within your firm, rather than wander the halls as Invisible People in someone else’s. Ditto clerical work. Ditto anything else that can be outsourced and does not require higher education.


p.10

Political theory and constitutional law still know only the sovereign state… [S]ince the end of World War II, the sovereign nation-state has steadily been losing its position as the sole organ of power.”

The solution to social discord is not political. Politicians, are by definition individuals who have chosen careers in the pursuit of power, rather than producing something of value. At best they are caretakers; at worst they are rulers who exempt themselves from the statutes and regulations that they impose on the rest of society.

The occasional bone that they throw to members of special interest groups is an attempt to buy votes, no matter how pretty the words, how forceful the scowl, or how many times the speaker repeats a phrase.

It is not within the framework of a nation-state that individuals create wealth. One does not vote wealth into existence. If one wants to create more wealth for the poor, one must look to where wealth is created.


p.14

I also consider it highly probable that within the next decade or two there will be new and startling ‘economic miracles’, in which poor, backward Third World countries transform themselves, virtually overnight, into fast-growth economics powers.”

viz. Hans Rosling’s TED presentations, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), and The Next 11 countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam).


Invest accordingly.

Prof. Evans