[extropy-chat] 'Unskilled jobs to go in 10 years'

[Hal Finney]

Adrian Tymes writes:
> The problem is that a nation is not just one person.
> Let's say you have two people, one of whom gets 2
> coins for a unit of wheat, and the other of whom
> consumes wheat at a certain rate.  Now introduce a
> third person, who can provide a unit of wheat for only
> one coin.  Trading with the less expensive wheat
> producer increases the wheat consumer's wealth by one
> coin per unit of wheat, and the less expensive wheat
> producer's wealth by the same - but it decreases the
> more expensive wheat producer's wealth by two coins
> per unit of wheat that would have been consumed.

You can't eat coins.  Let's suppose they are apples.  You start off with
two people, an apple grower and a wheat grower.  The wheat grower gets two
apples for a unit of wheat.  Now introduce a foreign guy who will provide
a unit of wheat for only one apple.  So the apple grower switches to him.
He can now pay one apple for a unit of wheat.

The net result is that before the foreigner came in, after an exchange,
the apple grower had 1 unit of wheat and the wheat grower had two apples.
After we introduce the foreign guy and do an exchange, the apple grower
has 1 apple and 1 unit of wheat, and the wheat grower has 1 unit of wheat.
Before trade, together they had 1 wheat and 2 apples; after trade,
they have 1 apple and 2 wheats.  Trade cost them an apple and gained
them a wheat.  But wheat is worth more to them than apples (otherwise
they would not have previously had a price of two apples per wheat),
so it is a net gain, consistent with my argument.

> However, the more expensive wheat producer is now
> free to do something else - like, say, refine the
> one-coin-per-unit wheat into bread worth at least
> three coins per unit.

And that makes it even better.

Hal