2nd June 2007, 11:34 am
Before World War II (1939-1940), about 31% of all jobs were manufacturing jobs. Recently (March, 2007), manufacturing jobs represented only about 10.2% of all jobs. (All numbers quoted in this report are either extracted from the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site or are computed directly from those numbers.) As recently as 1956, we still had 30% of the workforce employed in manufacturing, which was about 15.9 million jobs. In terms of absolute numbers of jobs, the peak was reached in 1979, with about 19.4 million manufacturing jobs. Ever since then, the number of manufacturing jobs has been declining on an absolute basis, and it has been declining even faster in terms of a percentage of the total workforce. We are no longer a nation of factories that manufacture things.
Continue reading ‘Losing Our Factories’ »
1st June 2007, 08:39 pm
When I write about “utility” in this essay, I’m referring to an ethical principle that is usually stated as something like: “the maximum amount of happiness for the maximum number of people.” This ethical system is usually called “utilitarianism.”
Now, I used to believe that utilitarianism was the best form of ethics, but I recognized that it had several problems, and among those problems were a total failure to motivate rather ordinary behavior. Most of us spend most of our time doing things that do not make us very happy. Most of us work, for instance, not because it makes us happy (although some of may be happy as a result of our work), but rather because it produces money for us to use to meet the needs and wants which arise in our lives. In other words, happiness is only a small portion of what we obtain when we work; that portion which allows us to fulfill our “wants.” Our needs are matters of necessity, and if observed strictly, fulfilling them provides little to no happiness. (There may be, of course, blended situations where I need to eat and I want to eat a steak; eating a steak fulfills my need and my want at the same time. The higher we are on the economic ladder of success, the more likely it is that our needs will be fulfilled using wants in this same fashion.)
Continue reading ‘Utility Is Means; Not End’ »