Topic: Technological unemployment is (almost) here - page 29. (Read 88285 times)

Democracy is possible, it's just not desirable. 

Yes - completely agree.

To me there seems to be a lot of confusion around at the minute about free market capitalism/freedom/anarchism/anarcho syndicalism/socialism/mutualism and the difference between them.

Some seem to be saying (libertarians ? anarchists ? David Cameron ? Hayek ? etc etc etc) that all thats required is less interference from outside agencies (read Government) to the free market - yes, they'll say, it needs a bit of regulation (begrudgingly), but generally speaking the market should be allowed to find its own level and everything will be alright in the end.

 The free market and perfect competition does exist already, just in case you would like to know what it looks like - its known, colloquially, as "the jungle". Its what we have been put on this earth to rise above.

Re. unemployment due to technology. Yes, its already occurring - as you all know. Whats happening is that, due to the prevailence of "free market" theory, in whatever guise, the people whose jobs have been lost to technology, far from benefiting from the advances, are in actual fact being laid on the scrapheap - that is, they are 9almost) living third world lives in first world countries. They are, as we speak, not only jobless, but are being made to pay for the recession/depression that was not of their doing. Thanks to the free market.

The natural assets/wealth that a country holds should be in the hands of the citizens of that country (wether they can write code or not) - wether this be done via a Chinese style mixed economy or via a share holding democracy that was touted but never seriously engaged with during the 1980's, I don't know.
    This requires state intervention - and state intervention is a problem only where it is unaccountable to the people (for example in a country where the electorate gets to participate in that parody of democracy known as the "first past the post" electoral system)

     Democracy is not possible where the wealth of a nation is held in private hands - as opposed to being held by the people.

You have to read more carefully.
"Free market" solutions to the technological unemployment cannot exist at all, this problem itself puts final stalemate on the capitalism! Government will be forced to nationalize means of production in any case (no matter what solution will be implemented - unconditional income, citizens' dividends or full employment in planned economy).

If that's the case, then wouldn't they also move their businesses out of the governments that want to plan economies? There won't be any economy for those governments to plan with. And if the businesses that move out are also the type that provide life essential things, like food, then this planned economy government would have to buy its food from those other countries, while having no economy, and thus no money, to buy it with. (and if you're proposing that farming gets collectivised, too, we all saw how well that worked in USSR and China)

Two concerns stood out for me...


If labor value has collapsed, that implies low income and high unemployment. Corporate profits come from sales. How will those profits increase to very high levels, if there's no one with money to buy the products?



History proves otherwise. If class C dividends are guaranteed, class C owners would still have the incentive to give themselves as much as they can now at the expense of the future population (especially older people), even to the detriment of A and B holders, and the future survival of the company. Replace "Class C Dividends" with "Tax/Debt supported social programs," and you'll see that the same thing is happening now: people are voting themselves more and more money through social funding, without caring about the associated future debt.

How much garbage, spilled gas and oil, carbon dioxide, lead, and uranium has been threwn all over Iraq in the last 10 years?

Again, do you really think capital owners will voluntary pay 80-90-95% of their profits to support unproductive jobs?! In fact, they will simply move businesses and factories to the countries which don't have this overhead! They are so greedy that move production from China to Vietnam and Cambodia where labor is few cents cheaper.
So large number of "unproductive" jobs (from market perspective) can exist only in the planned economy with govt ownership of the production means.

Hoops to jump through are important. I think we agree that minimizing uneconomic activity is for the best. Extreme ideology of any type results in tragedy. An extreme libertarian might respond to this problem by saying the unproductive should be allowed to starve and die as this will cull them from the population and any other solution requires government involvement and higher taxes aka a public dole.

Personally I think the "let them eat cake" approach is unwise. The British tried it during the irish potato famine and it did not work out all that well. I am willing to support some form of dole for people who by virtue of the the hand they were dealt don't have what it takes to compete in a world dominated by robots. The key with such a program is to keep it as small as possible and constantly encourage people to find real work.

Some form of work for individuals and society is important both in terms of individual psychological health (pride in work, feeling of accomplishment) and in terms of social stability.

Just because jobs are uneconomical dose not mean they wont be of some benefit to society. Any job that can be created that does not distort the real economy and raises the Popsicle Index would do. This would be a social safety net only for those who can't find other work it's still collectivism and thus not ideal but its far better then worldwide welfare for everyone or mass confiscation of private property in a futile attempt at a planned economy.

That is functionally a public dole but with 'hoops' to jump through so you can feel people are not being 'lazy', it's simply to satisfy your perception of what is 'good' for people to do despite your complete admittance that the activities done are not economically productive.  I fail to see how anyone calling himself a libertarian can be for mandating that people submit themselves to a kind of serfdom.

This is an assumption I disagree with. I outlined a possible third option above.

A government guarantee of employment limited to areas least likely to disrupt the real economy is very different from worldwide welfare for everyone or a worldwide attempt at a top down planned economy.

I am not saying this is the best possible solution only that it is better then the two options listed in the poll

But these 2 options are the only ones possible in the long run! And the first one must be implemented worldwide to sustain.

Degeneration of whole civilization through idling is not a new in the human history and posses much bigger problem than raising taxes. Slaves in the Ancient Rome are equivalent of the robots tomorrow!

Public ownership of the production means and planning must cover the economy entirely. Otherwise, which capital owner will keep production in this country and pay >90% taxes to provide unproductive jobs?! There are little fools among rich people!

Interesting post. This idea is also starting to hit the press.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21594298-effect-todays-technology-tomorrows-jobs-will-be-immenseand-no-country-ready

Don't like the poll above at all. Talk about two bad choices.

Guaranteed income for nothing would be a disaster essentially creating an ever growing mass of leaches living off the state and constantly asking for more taxes to raise the guarantee.
Planned economy is the lesser of two evils if only because no economy can be completely planned.

If technological innovation does not create sufficient jobs (a BIG if and one I don't agree with) the best solution is a gurantee of employment not income.

Government should offer jobs to anyone that wants them that pay a minimum necessary to achieve a "reasonable minimum quality of life". Such jobs should be strictly limited to areas least likely to disrupt the real economy but not useless. Things like waiting at busy street corners to help kids and little old ladies across the street come to mind.

Such jobs should be harder then most. Perhaps requiring longer hours per week or something aling those lines. The trade off for living off the public dime doing nothing really productive should be a job that's a little more demanding then average.

@Impaler, Usufruct system still doesn't solve employment problem - more than 80% of the population will idle and degrade slowly. As history shows "bread and circuses" policy in the long run lead only to the civilization collapse.

Was thinking of an interesting way to implement the unconditional income system. 

Lets say at some point labor value has collapsed and capitol goods gain an increasing share of wealth.  This would increase corporate profits to very high levels.  Income taxation would wither and corporate taxation (in the form of capital gains and corporate profit taxes) would become the only substantial source of tax revenue.  Rather then government continually collecting and transferring all this money, why not transfer the shares of stock in the corporations?  Public ownership of companies is not a new idea but it's normally done with the state as the owner, what if the citizenry itself owned these corporations directly.  Rather then normal ownership this would be 'Usufruct' by right of citizenship directly.

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

This might actually be a done by creating a new class of stock for all publicly traded companies, the new 'class C' (for Citizens) shares carry only one right, receiving dividends and voting for dividend amounts.  They can not be sold or transferred and are awarded to all citizens at birth and are annulled at death, the dividend providing a basic income for all citizens.  All current stock-holdings would be grandfathered in as either class B which may be sold on stock-markets as well having all the benefits of class C, or as Class A which choose management on-top of the benefits of class B (the A, B class distinction already exists so the only new thing here is the class C). 

Obviously the forcible creation of all the class C stock constitutes a massive transfer of private wealth to the public and I don't expect any libertarians to be in love with that idea.  This is simply a 'softer' form of nationalization then state ownership of the same corporations.

This system would maintain a semblance of Free-market investment activity and keep both the distribution of the basic-income and it's exact quantity more under the direct control of the public.  All stock owners including the class C ones would have an incentive to vote for lower dividends if it produces future growth that they can ultimately enjoy.  Companies would still be able to sell class A and B stock to raise revenue and they would still be traded to establish a market value and weed out weak companies.  New companies would still be created privately but would be required to issue class C stock when they become publicly traded.

Yep, that's the problem, but we can use technologies to enforce, say "direct democracy", which might work better.
Decentralization + cryptography is a very powerful tandem, which only started to develop. It can help us fight corruption. But it doesn't mean it will.

You are right, most governments are heavily lobbied by corporations which owners prefer to pay bribes instead of reducing pollution.

because governments are the ones allowing industries to pollute.

Can you prove your words?

Are you sure? Because government has been the worst polluter in the world, is the main cause of pollution in our national parks and forests, constantly interferes with scientific progress, blocks space exploration, and has been screwing up healthcare and education. And I mean REALLY badly!

Reduce the working hours by half every 4 years