Is this issue really a tragedy of the commons though? What resource is being depleted?
back
1 comments
The market value of labor, relative to other goods.
Also see the book "Two-Income Trap", it basically describes how households didn't become better off from making both partners work, because that just bid down the price of labor relative to housing and education. Everyone ended up in the same position as before, but now they work 2x more and cannot opt out. Also the non-working partner in the family provided a safety net because they could start working if things got rough, and now that safety net is gone.
> Everyone ended up in the same position as before, but now they work 2x more
Surely the extra people working produced more output (e.g. ~twice as many bugs fixed/year or ~twice as many new anti-cancer drugs/year). Supply of some things would remain constraint and their prices would be bidden up, but many others would have their supply increased and prices could even fall (e.g. due to capital costs spread over a larger number of units). We definitely have not ended up in the same position as before.
Sure, it's not the same position. Smartphones are getting cheaper. But how much do you spend on smartphones? The main argument is about things like housing and education, which don't seem to be getting cheaper.