In discussion with a friend over something (unrelated to the matter of this post) I mentioned this:
The corporate employees in this society aren't doing the work because they love it or have a personal intention of doing something meaningful for the society through their work. For most people today, the motivation behind their job is not the passion and love for it, but necessity. Most corporate employees hate their workplaces.
To which his reply was:
It is exactly this species that make the world an evil place that we think it is. And they have fooled themselves into believing that there is no way out of it. They can't find the work they love and are not willing to work hard to create an ecosystem for themselves to do what they love.
That made me think about the issue, and subsequently I came up with an explanation of why it is not easy to do what one loves. For now I have named this phenomenon Blackhole effect. Explaining it below in a simple way.
Suppose that the world is simple. Giant corporations are not around; and hence, all the industries existing are of a very moderate size. People freely choose from the ways of making a living.
Then someone makes a product which has a huge selling potential. This person who made the product is passionate about making such products. As this product has a huge selling potential he thinks of opening a factory and employ many people in the production of the product. And because the profits are going to be huge, he offers way better returns to the people who would be employed with him. So, people who are not particularly interested in that kind of work feel attracted to join the production factory. It's simple, if you go on raising the wage, the supply of workers increases. So, these first bunch of people chucked their respective loved occupations and joined into production of the newly invented product with huge selling potential. They did so out of the natural desire to have a better life. (Or because of allure of social status, because the factory is promising them the highest income possible in that society which will make them rich and thus socially powerful.)
The time passes. Now people working in this factory are earning more than the rest. The aggregate demand in the economy increases, because people have more money to spend. Supply being relatively inelastic, it drives up the prices, needless to mention, for all. (When demand increases and supply can't, prices go up.) While these people with higher income can afford goods with higher prices, the high prices affect negatively the lives of the people who have not joined the production factory. To maintain their level of consumption, they need more income. So some of them decide to chuck their loved occupation and join the production factory.
At this stage, what I called Blackhole effect is starting to emerge. The (production) factory here, is like a blackhole which will suck people into it compellingly. Moreover, as more people join it, it will become more powerful (by raising the income of more people, and thereby having bigger impact on prices) to suck even more people into it. For a particular "blackhole" (industry) there may be a limit at certain point as to how many people it can employ, but when there are number of blackholes in the economy, the effect does have consequences to the extent that is hard to ignore.
Today almost everyone decides which field to choose based on where the income is more. Then obvious advice like "do what you love" passes for wisdom. People even fool themselves to believe that this is what they love, when actually they love it only because they see it will give them the highest return. And by joining the industry they don't actually love, they further exacerbate the situation for all. But what can they do? If in a town of, say, 100 people, 50 are employed in one industry (or a set of industries, or blackholes) which is paying the highest, then they will definitely have an impact on general price level, and to match the income others will naturally be drawn to the same industry (get sucked into those blackholes). That's one of the reasons why work today is something most people do out of necessity and not out of love for that work.
Some people, of course, can succeed in pulling off the career of their choice; but when one tries that the system subjects one to hardships (when that career is apart from the blackholes) which may not be bearable for all. And it's no one's fault, actually. It's the nature of economy.
Where there's economy, individuals can't have much choice of what occupation to have. Well, and economy can't not be. The problem is the existence of industries which grow large enough to assume the nature of a blackhole. And when GDP is the goal, it's natural that those blackholes would be seen as a blessing. But are they? GDP and the real wellbeing are quite often the goals of conflicting nature.
(I will refine the theory by adding psychological underpinnings of Blackhole effect in some future post.)
The corporate employees in this society aren't doing the work because they love it or have a personal intention of doing something meaningful for the society through their work. For most people today, the motivation behind their job is not the passion and love for it, but necessity. Most corporate employees hate their workplaces.
To which his reply was:
It is exactly this species that make the world an evil place that we think it is. And they have fooled themselves into believing that there is no way out of it. They can't find the work they love and are not willing to work hard to create an ecosystem for themselves to do what they love.
That made me think about the issue, and subsequently I came up with an explanation of why it is not easy to do what one loves. For now I have named this phenomenon Blackhole effect. Explaining it below in a simple way.
Blackhole effect (Economics): The theory of why one can't choose occupation one loves
Suppose that the world is simple. Giant corporations are not around; and hence, all the industries existing are of a very moderate size. People freely choose from the ways of making a living.
Then someone makes a product which has a huge selling potential. This person who made the product is passionate about making such products. As this product has a huge selling potential he thinks of opening a factory and employ many people in the production of the product. And because the profits are going to be huge, he offers way better returns to the people who would be employed with him. So, people who are not particularly interested in that kind of work feel attracted to join the production factory. It's simple, if you go on raising the wage, the supply of workers increases. So, these first bunch of people chucked their respective loved occupations and joined into production of the newly invented product with huge selling potential. They did so out of the natural desire to have a better life. (Or because of allure of social status, because the factory is promising them the highest income possible in that society which will make them rich and thus socially powerful.)
The time passes. Now people working in this factory are earning more than the rest. The aggregate demand in the economy increases, because people have more money to spend. Supply being relatively inelastic, it drives up the prices, needless to mention, for all. (When demand increases and supply can't, prices go up.) While these people with higher income can afford goods with higher prices, the high prices affect negatively the lives of the people who have not joined the production factory. To maintain their level of consumption, they need more income. So some of them decide to chuck their loved occupation and join the production factory.
At this stage, what I called Blackhole effect is starting to emerge. The (production) factory here, is like a blackhole which will suck people into it compellingly. Moreover, as more people join it, it will become more powerful (by raising the income of more people, and thereby having bigger impact on prices) to suck even more people into it. For a particular "blackhole" (industry) there may be a limit at certain point as to how many people it can employ, but when there are number of blackholes in the economy, the effect does have consequences to the extent that is hard to ignore.
Today almost everyone decides which field to choose based on where the income is more. Then obvious advice like "do what you love" passes for wisdom. People even fool themselves to believe that this is what they love, when actually they love it only because they see it will give them the highest return. And by joining the industry they don't actually love, they further exacerbate the situation for all. But what can they do? If in a town of, say, 100 people, 50 are employed in one industry (or a set of industries, or blackholes) which is paying the highest, then they will definitely have an impact on general price level, and to match the income others will naturally be drawn to the same industry (get sucked into those blackholes). That's one of the reasons why work today is something most people do out of necessity and not out of love for that work.
Some people, of course, can succeed in pulling off the career of their choice; but when one tries that the system subjects one to hardships (when that career is apart from the blackholes) which may not be bearable for all. And it's no one's fault, actually. It's the nature of economy.
Where there's economy, individuals can't have much choice of what occupation to have. Well, and economy can't not be. The problem is the existence of industries which grow large enough to assume the nature of a blackhole. And when GDP is the goal, it's natural that those blackholes would be seen as a blessing. But are they? GDP and the real wellbeing are quite often the goals of conflicting nature.
(I will refine the theory by adding psychological underpinnings of Blackhole effect in some future post.)
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