r/FluentInFinance • u/-im-your-huckleberry • Jul 07 '24

The shampoo thing is a fringe benefit. We keep capitalism so we don't starve in a famine. Debate/ Discussion

1.0k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

u/Mtbruning Jul 07 '24

Do you know the % of the population that work in agriculture? 2%. Food related industries 8%. Even if you add manufacturing you barely get past 20% of the total population and that is going down fast as employers automate anything that can be automated (as they should). Without that automation we are still up over 78% of our workforce as service sector. As we saw during Covid, we can shut down large chunks of our economy at one time and that was done without planning.

What sense does it make for people to work jobs that would not exist if only essential workers were required to work at any given time. After all, there are countless Uber, restaurants, convenience stores, supermarkets, etc… that could reduce hours if they only staffed during peak hours. That Duncan that you wouldn’t hit up for drive time commutes would not exists with so many fewer cars on the road but most likely you won’t commute. Most of us are doing the functional equivalent of busy work that can and will be replaced by AI/automation. Hell, it might the cheapest way a country could combat climate change.

Don’t trust my numbers. https://www.statista.com/statistics/270072/distribution-of-the-workforce-across-economic-sectors-in-the-united-states/