Topic: Technological unemployment is (almost) here - page 25. (Read 88285 times)

"Free-market" is very abstract term. This is mostly true if you speak about trade barriers (during last decades most of them have been removed, allowing corporations to outsource labor to third-world countries that affected wages and employment the same way as automation).
Moreover, removing entry barriers and licensing won't significantly affect employment. It will simply increase competition in the currently-protected sectors slashing the wages and profit margins. For example, if the government will entirely remove all taxi regulations, some unemployed will get opportunity to earn living with driving own car while many professional taxi drivers will be pushed away from the market with falling fares.

There are simply no capitalist solutions for the technological unemployment problem. Period! Even moderate right-wingers accept this fact (you cannot call the author of the book "Lights in the tunnel" as socialist because he fully advocates market-based economic model, but nevertheless he insists to implement unconditional income TO SAVE this system). If insane right-wing fanatics (they call themselves "neoliberals" or "neoconservatives") won't change their position, they all will be killed during revolutions.

World elites now mostly consist of insane neoliberals who try to hide any problems and keep status quo until the end.

Capitalist, yes. Free market? You seem an intelligent dude, so I'm not going to behead you for that ignorant remark. The only free markets in the US, and most developed nations, are referred to as "black markets" by the media. And they are indeed prosperous. The rest is regulated unto death. A great deal of the lack of labor participation in the US is due to the fact that if you try to engage in any sort of commerce without a small to large fortune backing your endeavors, the barrier to entry via licensing, inspections, necessary bribes, ad nauseam make it nearly impossible. In a free market, the failure rate would be higher, but the losses generally smaller, as the barrier to entry is essentially skill and guts.

Also, of note in your own reply, yes the most developed nations are capitalist. Funny how that works, isn't it? I'm not speaking theoretically when I say socialist societies eat themselves. I'm old enough to have observed it, multiple times. The Soviet Union achieved rather more than most of them, but in the end the necessary contradictions of "public" ownership, as opposed to individual ownership, led to their demise. Socialism is a beautiful concept, if you don't look too deep. It works great for ants, bees, and the Borg. But humans are NOT faceless, replaceable parts in a giant machine. Trying to make us be leads to failure.

The problem you present is real. And yes, I do understand exponential growth (and it's limits!). But the problem is not insurmountable. For one thing, technological advancement does not happen all at once and all in one place. Thus when a certain threshold is passed in one place, those in others observe, react, and where necessary, change course. In a truly free market, this is a quick, dynamic process. In what passes for markets now, it isn't.

The one thing I have in common with socialists is a hatred for the corporate dynamic. Not so much how they organize things, that works, but the very concept of a juridical person. It absolves their leaders of responsibility for atrocious acts. It is exactly the same bullshit as "sovereign immunity" in yet another scam: Central government. Remove the latter, and the former no longer have the patina of legitimacy conferred by the status of Juridical Person. Once that patina of legitimacy is removed, they either have to let the people rise, or show their true colors and raise armies to keep us on their treadmill. Ultimately, the corporatism of the modern age will fail, and when it does, strong individuals will find ways to solve their problems. The weaker or less motivated will emulate them, and we will start making more, different problems for ourselves.

We are a young species. We have come far in a short time, and yes, these issues need to be addressed. But let's not base the solutions on things that have already been proven a failure.

People won't die if they won't buy cars, smartphones, luxuries, movies, music, go to fitness, yoga, beauty shops etc!

Currently there are no truly socialist communities in the world, therefore it cannot happen in principle. But for the most developed countries (which are all free-market capitalist now) technological unemployment is knocking the door. Don't believe?! Look at the U.S. labor participation rate since year 2000.

For many people it is just hard to understand what is an exponential growth curve (technology advancements follows it). No doubt new jobs will appear, but after some point their number will be less than jobs automated.

Which won't happen in socialist communities because they will eat themselves first. Long before technological unemployment is actually a concept, let alone a problem.

The truth that has been in our faces since the first proto-human figured out a tool is that when we reduce labor in one area, it opens up new areas.

The other truth, sadly, is that there are always a bunch of whining bastards who proclaim the end of the world whenever the paradigm shifts.

Look at the example you're typing on. It put a lot of professions out of business. Yet it CREATED hundreds more. Possibly thousands, given the flexibility of the Personal Computer.

We are not going to be outcompeted by robots. We will adapt. We always have, and we always will. I am a strong believer in the abilities and potential of the human race. We are a dangerous, misguided, fucked up, creative, and wonderful species who will dominate everything we touch, learning along the way, until we either perish utterly or get off this rock. (which will also be a likely scenario as automation pushes further into our lives.)

Technologically speaking, we should have already colonized near space and be well on our way to the stars. All we lack is the will, and with both automation and an unrestricted breeding cycle, the will will come.

Okay let me join this game.

First, check out my whitepaper which is my solution to technological basic income http://darkai.org/?page_id=41

It is work in progress. Please let me know what you think.

The only point at which consumers stop demanding is when they die.

@Biomech, tragedy of the commons will occur in capitalist (free-market) economies when tech unemployment will hit them. Consumer demand is the resource that will be depleted!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Public property is an oxymoron in all languages.

This question can be equivalent to "Do capitalists agree to pay taxes to fund unconditional income?" or "Do capitalists agree to keep wage the same but reduce working hours?". Demurrage is just another expense for capital owners along with taxes and wages.
Considering this fact and that many (probably most) CEOs and major shareholders are insane right-wingers, the answer is rather obvious!

Businesses can easily adapt to an altcoin with fast demurrage.  They'll spend altcoins as fast as they can, of course, and when they acquire a surplus that they don't need to spend right away (i.e. a profit), they'll be able to exchange it for Bitcoins or dollars or some other currency for a small premium.  When they need to spend more than they have on hand, they will be able to exchange their dollars for altcoins to gain back most of the premium they paid to get into dollars. 

The basic question a capitalist will ask him or her self, will be -"Would I rather incur the small effort and tiny cost of accepting and handling a high demurrage rate altcoin, or let these customers with the altcoins go to a competitor who will accept them?"   

As long as there are fast, convenient and reliable online exchanges, I suspect they will take the business.   

For that matter, it seems like any crypto-coin for crypto-coin exchange could be done completely with an online ask/offer/accept/trade protocol, with only the tiny transaction fees.   No need for an intermediary exchange-for-fee business, as there is for converting to/from government currencies.   

But redistribution is completely different - in capitalist system unemployed will get nothing but in RBE equal share of the products made by publicly-owned automated factories.

Whoever controls what each member of the public is able to receive, owns the capital. Be it a capitalist person, or an RBE computer system.

In RBE all means of production are public property so there are no capital owners at all (in fact, entire population of the community owns equal share of the economy). Difficult to call it the capitalism!

sometimes too much automation is terrible ... when it is hard to pull software out the box, glueless-lego-chip are can be very usefull

  

RBE is just free market capitalism, but with votes instead of money as a demand signal. Plus maybe some totalitarianism and Big Brother type stuff.

I have posted a lot of statistics in this thread, e.g.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.4441504

The TU problem will start emerging far earlier than full automation be achieved. Many economists agree that some tipping point exists, after which number of jobs created by technological change will be less than jobs eliminated (more simplified - you need just 10 workers to develop/manufacture/fix robot which replaces 1000 jobs). Studying various stats, I could presume that this point was already passed in about year 2000, so in the long run real income for median worker will continuously fall and public anger rise.

I just love the way there are totally not a single data based on actual statistics in first post. Such theories are close to some fantasy dystopia than actual economical expectations. There is rather big difference between machine that speed up producing certain product but still need human to control/maintain/upgrade/program/clean/fix and machine that would do everything for us. I've read some Dick books recently and at some point he points out what would happen when main computer would crush and there would be no living human able to reboot it or something. I don't think Dick were thinking about himself as economist, but i guess he just loved to point out some paradoxes. Well... not to mention it is rather distant future. If you would show ipod to someone who lived 200 years ago, that person would freakout, same as we would in his position but another 200 in the future. 

I also love when someone is using graph to show something without any numbers inside. It is great way to show something is scientific, even when it isn't.

I think anti-capitalist fighters will put you on the top of enemy list who deserve to be shot! 

Absolutely agree! NONE of the free-market/capitalist solutions able to solve coming problem!

We need an RBE (resource based economy). Is this or death. Cryptocurrencies may be a good transition, but they ultimately solve nothing.

I give you the best solution ever!
Let's kill most of the people (like the OP says "useless") on the planet!