krueger10_Scott Olson_Getty Images_trucks

特朗普的反服务经济

Dec 13, 2018 Anne O. Krueger

华盛顿—十九世纪，70%以上的美国工作者是农民。到2017年，这一数字不到27%。1970年，大约32%的私人就业处于商品生产行业。。到2018年这一数字是13.5%。美国经济的活力部门在服务业，尽管美国总统特朗普似乎并没有抓住这一点，执着于旧制造业。

从前，增长最迅速的行业由制造业公司组成，今天则是服务业公司。许多人——也许也包括特朗普——认为服务业无非是家庭清洁工、维护人员和餐厅工作人员。但服务业也包括交通、IT、金融、专业和商业服务、教育、娱乐以及其他。在美国，服务业雇员数量最多的是交通和公用事业、教育和医疗业，以及商业服务。这其中甚至尚未包括自由职业者。

2017年，美国制造业总体有1,240万工人，而光是商业和专业服务，就有2,060万。大部分观察者将经济中最现代化、最有活力的活动——以及许多高薪岗位——归为后者。总体而言，服务生产就业构成了私营部门总就业的70%。

To continue reading, register now.

As a registered user, you can enjoy more PS content every month – for free.

Subscribe now for unlimited access to everything PS has to offer.

Already have an account? Log in

Subscribe to Project Syndicate

Enjoy unlimited access to the ideas and opinions of the world's leading thinkers, including weekly long reads, book reviews, topical collections, and interviews; The Year Ahead annual print magazine; the complete PS archive; and more. All for less than $9 a month.

Subscribe Now

Anne O. Krueger

Writing for PS since 2014
52 Commentaries

Anne O. Krueger, a former World Bank chief economist and former first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is Senior Research Professor of International Economics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Development at Stanford University.

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 11 Comments on this article

Douglas Leyendecker Dec 17, 2018

Ah...service serving service that's serving service isn't a sustainable economy unless you increase debt and monetary stimulus. Just look at the last 40 years. Service requires a master and that master will ALWAYS be production.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Alex Aslanidis Dec 16, 2018

No, the real reason for the shift from goods to services is that by the 70's western workers had become too expensive and consumption wasn't growing as much, something which led to capital losses. This resulted to paradigm shift. The Keynesians gave their place to the neoliberals. Their solution? Move production to the cheap East, liberalize the financial sector, and finance consumption through private debt.

Today we have reach a similar conundrum. Private debt is too much, and the only thing that keeps the economy going is the mark-to-fantasy asset valuations thanks to central-bank money printing (directed to the rich). This will inevitably lead to a new paradigm shift, but it's going to take time.

It only makes the views of globalists like Krueger all the more hysterical.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
g.lamb Dec 16, 2018

Anne Krueger is absolutely right in this sensible piece. And to the comments obsessing about manufacturing:. Manufacturing OUTPUT in the US is doing just fine -- even though manufacturing EMPLOYMENT has dropped sharply, as the article makes clear.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
nigel southway Dec 14, 2018

This is a boneheaded globalist view and uses clever numbers to make a case..

Trump has not been anti service.. but he has been anti import/export balance..

We have far too much labor arbitrage in both manufacturing and service and its not in balance and is a wealth transfer machine.

The economy that can get a better balance and make grow mine and service what it consumes in a sustainable manner will be the best one, not only for its citizens, but also for the planet.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
P. Kamath Dec 14, 2018

It would be dangerous and foolish to ignore manufacturing all sorts of industrial products and be dependent on imports only. Industries are sinews of any nation.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Mike Robinson Dec 13, 2018

We can only speak of a "service" economy when we are – I say, stupidly – altogether confident that "someone else" will provide the T-H-I-N-G-S that make it all work.

"Globalists" tried to sell the world on the notion that this could actually, miraculously, be done, based on precisely three things:

(1) That "Communist China" could continue to exercise its autocratic privileges – and its utter disregard for environmental protections and so-forth – to "Sell for Less, Always."

(2) That "cheaper labor" could be brought into a country without impediment, to replace citizen labor with – pick one – "indentured servants," or simply "slaves."

(3) That the citizens of the countries in question – including "a great many who of course knew better" – would simply roll over and play dead.

However, at long last, "they are but Naked Emperors."
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Petey Bee Dec 13, 2018

We categorize cabdrivers and busboys together with lawyers and finance people, simply because they are something other than manufacturing or construction.

Stats for "professional services" and "working-class servants" should be considered separately. They are very different from each other. Important figures like "average salary/growth" and so forth will be badly distorted if the two populations are mixed together in analysis.

Statements such as the headline to this article become hopelessly ambiguous.
- P. Kamath Dec 16, 2018
  
  Are you sure that labour of lawyers are equated with that of busboys ? Where, where?
  - Petey Bee Dec 16, 2018
    
    The term 'service economy' intentionally conflates the two.
    
    For example, title of this article, together with photograph of working class man walking next to a parking lot full of trucks. However, the text touts the service sector as the vanguard of modernization - the sector which is to rise up to replace the lost physical industries. As exemplified by IT, business services, and the largest dollar-value part, financial services.
    
    For example this quote:
    
    "Most observers categorize the economy’s most modern and dynamic activities – and many of its high-paying jobs – among the latter activities. Overall, service-producing employment constituted 70% of total private-sector employment."
    
    The first sentence refers to white-collar service jobs, the second refers to all service jobs which of course includes the restaurant workers, cleaners, and so on.
    
    Disaggregating these would be a necessary condition for insight.
    
    Next, the context of the disussion is that we are talking about what kind of economic activity (and employment) has replaced the manufacturing industries. Is it plausible that a household earning $$ from manufacturing could transform into a household earning from blue-collar service work? Easily. Transform into earning from white collar service work? That would require significant support from government. This is a critical distinction that is buried by combining the two together and celebrating the sum total of their employment numbers.
    
    For what it's worth, I am curious whether the sum total of hours used to produce the manufactured goods consumed in the US has even declined -- if one takes in to account labor content that's been offshored. (for instance, north america as a whole hasn't had such as huge decrease in manufacturing employment). That's not to say there isn't benefit to offshoring -- if the domestic labor freed by this can be put to a more productive use. My point is that the terms of the analysis, as they are, are sloppy and effectively addressing the most pertinent questions.
    - P. Kamath Dec 17, 2018
      
      Good points indeed. Thanks
      A new reply to this comment has been posted.
    - Petey Bee Dec 16, 2018
      
      typo last sentence - *effectively avoid*
      A new reply to this comment has been posted.
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.

https://prosyn.org/j2KuM8Zzh

特朗普的反服务经济

Subscribe to Project Syndicate

New Comment

Email this piece to a friend

Contact us

Log in/Register

特朗普的反服务经济

Subscribe to Project Syndicate

Edit Newsletter Preferences

Set up Notification