How many computer programmers does society actually need?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You often hear about how if people want to improve their job prospects and/or lives they ought to learn coding or IT or things like that. One of my oldest friends is a computer engineer so I'm not really as biased against the tech industry as I sometimes come across, but I still find this talking point a little confusing. Entirely leaving aside the fact that a great many people are simply slightly but noticeably less intelligent than average and that these people deserve to have safe and meaningful lives too, I've become increasingly curious as to how many computer programmers and IT people folks think society actually needs or can support.

P.S. I meant to post this in either IP or Economics; mods, feel free to move it to one of those boards.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Nobody has come anywhere near understanding the point of the question so I'm locking the thread.

I'm appalled that I have to spell this out, but what I meant was "if we as a people were making honest choices about what society, qua society, should orient itself around, would we really decide that computers and IT should be the only real growth industry, into which everybody else should be 'retrained'?"

I literally could not care less about expressing social needs or the common good as a function of what people "choose" to "consume", especially given the sorry set of options available.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Update:

And to answer your new question...
1. Not everyone is being retrained to the IT industry
2. Neither "should" everyone be retrained to the IT industry

Well, obviously, but you wouldn't know that from the way some of these Silicon Valley tech-progressive types and their liberal centrist politician handmaidens talk about labor market issues, which was my motivation for starting the thread.

If you insist on continuing this discussion, which I don't agree was productive (I also don't agree that my initial question was in any way unclear but that an inability to think outside the confines of neoliberalism made it so), I'll just unlock the old thread.

Anyway, sorry for flouncing (and for still being such a pill about this now tbh).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

*snip*

Thanks for reiterating/clarifying, Foucaulf. This does actually answer my question as a question, although partly it was a rhetorical question anyway, inspired by frustration over your point 1.

Point taken about realtors!

I should clarify that I don't actually think academia or punditry as they currently exist would really be any better as socioeconomic trendsetters than market forces are and I'm sorry if I implied otherwise.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Nobody has come anywhere near understanding the point of the question so I'm locking the thread.

I'm appalled that I have to spell this out, but what I meant was "if we as a people were making honest choices about what society, qua society, should orient itself around, would we really decide that computers and IT should be the only real growth industry, into which everybody else should be 'retrained'?"

I literally could not care less about expressing social needs or the common good as a function of what people "choose" to "consume", especially given the sorry set of options available.

No, I think that was clear. Hence, my answer is that we as a society make that choice when we decide what we are willing to pay people to do.

Since that wasn't what you meant, I suggested the question is (as it usually is in those cases) rather something like "I think people have wrong preferences and should have other preferences". Or, as you put it, you "don't care about what people choose to consume". But the answer to what people *should* consume is one that I as a confined neoliberal am not that opinionated on. I'm fine letting people be who they are. If you're not interested in what others' preferences are, I then think it's a little odd to ask other people, since this implies their preference will only be considered legitimate or valid if it coincides with your own.

I can't really tell if you're reifying "preferences" as this quasi-mystical force or if that's just how the language of "preference" comes across to people like me anyway, so I think I'll let this drop.

I find this question to be odd given the OP's own vocation (of which he admits he has not a clear idea what to do with) has not been engaged with other than with genuine curiousity even though it could be argued it's utterly pointless and of little net gain to anyone but the person who studies it. Likewise some people just have a passion for working with computers...

Of course! The difference is that there isn't an "academic theology industry" constantly shilling for itself in conversations about what higher education and the labor market should be geared towards. And if there were, I'm contrarian enough that I'd probably be studying something different. Thanks for pricking my hot-air bubble, though.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The idea that x number of computer programmers (or much of any other "new economy" occupation, really) are as immediately indispensable to the people who use their services as x number of psychologists isn't the sort of insinuation that I think I (I personally) am capable of discussing objectively, so I don't really see any point in continuing this argument, except to say that believing that there should be standards for value to society other than "what people can be convinced to pay for" doesn't mean ipso facto that I don't care about other people's opinions. Also that (in my experience, at least) it's possible to discuss rhetorical questions on their own terms and to derive usable lines of discussion from them, otherwise they wouldn't be called "rhetorical".

I guess the plus side of people shilling for ~coding lessons~ as a panacea for Middle America's labor market woes is that people can, in principle, do coding anywhere that has internet access, so one doesn't, in principle, have to desperately scramble to make it into one of a few hip-'n'-happening metropoles the way one does with certain other "new economy" jobs.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

We live in a market-driven economy.

To me asking the question "is the market making the wrong choice in this area" opens up the elephant in the room, which is generally speaking, what is the authority of the market, and if it isn't absolute, then what is the basis of any alternative authority?

Explicit, community-based, democratic decision-making.

Alternately: class struggle.

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There's "hype" and then there's "presented as a panacea for all job market and labor relations woes".

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The correct answer is however many can make a living off of computer programming, to be determined by market forces.

How did I know you were going to say this?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Ugh, whatever. You don't understand my "model", no, but I doubt we're going to end up agreeing on any premises that will allow us to discuss this further so let's just give it a rest.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Nathan, I'm a little disappointed that you refuse to engage with my criticism but I obviously can't force you to.

If it weren't the end of the academic year I'd probably be more inclined to, so please don't take it personally.

It's absolutely fascinating how neoliberals these days don't even have to preach on the glorious virtues of The Market anymore, because they have been so thoroughly immersed in their creed that they can't even comprehend why anyone would not view it as the only possible mechanism for making social decisions. Truly a textbook case in the study of ideologies.

Are you aware that someone can believe in markets without being neoliberals? Taxes, a social safety net, and regulation/government takeover of industries that can't have healthy competition(eg health care, education, utilities) fit well into more left views of the free market, and is the economic system of the most successful countries with far left economics(Sweden, Norway, and Finland). You need to stop using the word neoliberal; you tend to label people with it who really don't fit (eg me), and the way you use it makes it sound more like a boogeyman then an actual ideology.

Antonio's AMA thread in IP has a pretty robust definition of neoliberalism in it. You might not agree with his definition or the things he applies it to, but he has thought about this and does mean something specific by it.