One can usually assume that most of what Joe Klein writes is blatantly biased and/or wrong. That’s why I usually avoid commenting on his work.
But this passage in his latest TIME piece merits attention:
If the government decided to limit carbon emissions and reduce our
dependence on foreign oil, new technologies would create a wave of jobs
for the auto industry.While it’s good to hear a Republican acknowledging these basic truths….
Klein falls into the trap described in two recent peer reviews for the John Locke Foundation: he labels the creation of a new job as a benefit with no cost.
This is neither a “basic truth,” nor a truth of any kind. New jobs linked to government restrictions on the market economy are jobs created by economic inefficiency. Those new jobs draw workers away from other areas in which they would play a better role in helping the economy grow.
As economist Ben Powell writes in one of the peer reviews:
[J]obs themselves are not a benefit; if they were, workers would be paying their employers for the privilege of working, rather than vice versa! It is the value created by performing those jobs that is the benefit, while doing the job is the cost an individual must pay to obtain a benefit.
The value created by the jobs Klein touts is not enough to outweigh the cost of making energy more expensive. If the value associated with the production of Klein’s jobs outweighed the costs, the government would need to do nothing. People out to make a buck would be addressing the issue.
