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Has the decline of knowledge work begun?

(www.nytimes.com)
388 points pseudolus | 5 comments | 25 Mar 25 17:02 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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deadbabe ◴[26 Mar 25 19:03 UTC] No.43485671[source]▶
The truth many will not want to admit is that knowledge work is essentially the “rentier income” version of labor.

You secure an asset (specialized knowledge), and then you just live off of it while doing the minimal work you can, by turning yourself into an asset.

Even though this affords many people a comfortable life, much like being a landowner of a vast portfolio of properties, it contributes to the inequality and degradation of society, splitting people between those who must labor physically and those who look down at them comfortably from high balconies.

Society will not be worse off with most people doing physical labor. It was that way for thousands of years and humanity flourished. People may not like it, but humanity can only truly relax and do nothing when it has reached its peak and every problem is solved, and we are just not there yet. Back to work.

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1. lisper ◴[26 Mar 25 19:18 UTC] No.43485885[source]▶
> turning yourself into an asset

How is that any different from any other skilled labor? Recall the old joke about the plumber who charged $1 for banging on the pipe and $1000 for knowing where to bang. Even purely physical labor like digging ditches requires that you have certain physical traits (strength and stamina) that you can look at as assets.

> Society will not be worse off with most people doing physical labor.

Like what? There is virtually nothing that used to be done with human labor that can't be done by machine nowadays. Even ditch-digging is mostly done with backhoes, not men with shovels. For the moment we still need (some) humans to run the machines, but that's knowledge work too.

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2. deadbabe ◴[27 Mar 25 12:32 UTC] No.43492917[source]▶
With physical labor you still need to do the work to deliver value, where as with knowledge work, you may not need to do anything until you are needed, but people pay to simply have access to you. Many software engineers for example, don’t do much most of the time, but they are an asset due to their familiarity with company systems.
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3. lisper ◴[27 Mar 25 16:13 UTC] No.43495111[source]▶
> with knowledge work, you may not need to do anything until you are needed

That can be true for physical labor as well. Fire fighters. Ambulance drivers. Soldiers. All get paid to be on-call.

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4. deadbabe ◴[27 Mar 25 16:28 UTC] No.43495270{3}[source]▶
Yes, it’s rent-seeking behavior. And when you retire, sometimes you draw pension and do nothing for the rest of your life, you use your past service as an asset for future gains.
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5. lisper ◴[27 Mar 25 16:54 UTC] No.43495505{4}[source]▶
Past service can't be an asset. You can convert your present service into assets (i.e. you can save instead of spend) but the compensation for the service itself can only be done at the time it's rendered, even if the payment takes the form of debt. But the debt is the asset, not the past service itself. And I don't see anything wrong with that. It is quite literally the essence of capitalism.

Rent-seeking is different. Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth [1]. That is not at all the same as making your living off of assets that you've earned with past labor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking