I think this idea (not just you, it's been expressed by many on this thread) that it must be Silicon Valley or Google specifically that absorbs the 27 million unemployed or underemployed workers shows a remarkable lack of imagination.
What's likely to happen isn't that Google hires 27 million people. It's that Google hires 10,000 people, who learn the details of the new methods of production required in the information age. Some of those will quit (even though Google doesn't want them to) and found new businesses. Some of them will even leave Silicon Valley and go back to their hometowns or other cheaper areas, and bring the knowledge & culture back with them. They'll then hire other people, who will learn the skills & culture needed to thrive in the information age, and so on, until it's disseminated widely throughout society.
Instead of everyone moving to California, California will move to everyone.
My bewilderment is mostly at this avoidance of economic rationality. To me, the market is sending a very clear signal that certain ways of doing things - those that involve computers, and replacing human labor with them - are more efficient than the old ways of doing things, and that's why people who adopt them make lots of money. The logical thing to do is to adopt them too. Lots of people are not doing that, and assume that there must be something mystical or corrupt about how Silicon Valley makes its money.
I get your bewilderment, I'm just wondering if it's not a red herring in a discussion over the problems of the overall US society. I'm not convinced that even if the market for programmers (even accounting for more local companies and such) was flooded until the average wage dropped 50%, that it would make a significant dent in that number, which is likely to grow.
What's likely to happen isn't that Google hires 27 million people. It's that Google hires 10,000 people, who learn the details of the new methods of production required in the information age. Some of those will quit (even though Google doesn't want them to) and found new businesses. Some of them will even leave Silicon Valley and go back to their hometowns or other cheaper areas, and bring the knowledge & culture back with them. They'll then hire other people, who will learn the skills & culture needed to thrive in the information age, and so on, until it's disseminated widely throughout society.
Instead of everyone moving to California, California will move to everyone.
My bewilderment is mostly at this avoidance of economic rationality. To me, the market is sending a very clear signal that certain ways of doing things - those that involve computers, and replacing human labor with them - are more efficient than the old ways of doing things, and that's why people who adopt them make lots of money. The logical thing to do is to adopt them too. Lots of people are not doing that, and assume that there must be something mystical or corrupt about how Silicon Valley makes its money.