Home | Away

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

The emperor’s new jobs

Shorter Virginia Postrel (from this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine):

I was getting my facial, manicure, and massage the other day, and it occurred to me-- you know, a lot of people work in these “aesthetic” industries!  I don’t have any real data or anything, but I bet there are a lot of jobs out there that the government just isn’t counting because we just don’t think creatively and dynamically about what “jobs” are!  I bet I can sell this to The New York Times Magazine!  Wow, I’ve already generated more wealth in the New Dynamist Economy, just by thinking!

“Mad Max” Sawicky and Brad DeLong have more substantial responses to Ms. Postrel-- they’re great, in the sense that they show what a libertarian fantasy-land she’s living in, but then again they take her seriously, which is a mistake I made two years ago when I corresponded briefly with her about disability, cloning, and prenatal screening (in the course of working on a paper for a conference on disability and deafness at Gallaudet University), and found that despite writing volubly on these subjects, she hadn’t thought very long or very well about any of them.

Details on request, of course.

Posted by Michael on 02/24 at 07:09 AM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages