I shouldn’t have used a company for my example because as you illustrated that’s not a very interesting case; if it wasn’t a company but the government (e.g. the TSA), does economic theory say those jobs will come back in a more efficient form?
Even without competition, the flow of constrained resources still applies. Public or private, no theory says that the jobs will come back in a more efficient form. The theory does say that _someone_ always pays for inefficiency.
In the TSA case, customers/travelers suffer greatly, and taxpayers as well. Employing fewer humans would benefit some of them (by motivating them to find jobs that are better for them), and harm some (by forcing them into the less-rewarding next-best job they can find), just like in the company case. And it would benefit customers and owners(taxpayers), just like in the company case.
Whether humanity overall is better off with that efficiency is a question of aggregation, for which I don’t think there is an objective answer. I believe that, in almost all cases, efficiency is an improvement for the median and average human, when measured on decade timescales, even when it seems a loss for shorter timescales or subgroups.
I shouldn’t have used a company for my example because as you illustrated that’s not a very interesting case; if it wasn’t a company but the government (e.g. the TSA), does economic theory say those jobs will come back in a more efficient form?
Even without competition, the flow of constrained resources still applies. Public or private, no theory says that the jobs will come back in a more efficient form. The theory does say that _someone_ always pays for inefficiency.
In the TSA case, customers/travelers suffer greatly, and taxpayers as well. Employing fewer humans would benefit some of them (by motivating them to find jobs that are better for them), and harm some (by forcing them into the less-rewarding next-best job they can find), just like in the company case. And it would benefit customers and owners(taxpayers), just like in the company case.
Whether humanity overall is better off with that efficiency is a question of aggregation, for which I don’t think there is an objective answer. I believe that, in almost all cases, efficiency is an improvement for the median and average human, when measured on decade timescales, even when it seems a loss for shorter timescales or subgroups.