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In the long run, humanity is better off if we're not paying people below minimum wage under the table to pick pears. If a portion of the surplus value generate

• vegabook 11y ago
  Very true if, and only if, "a portion of the surplus value generated by these awful machines can be captured and paid to the people they displace". But a very small group of financiers/entrepreneurs/VCs own all the machines, their ownership of the machines gives them an advantage in owning even more machines, and it is not in their nature (ie, human nature) for them to spread the sunshine. That's the problem. That's why we have a vast underclass already today, and it's not getting any smaller, despite the wishful thinking of the technerati (of which I am one).
  • cheald 11y ago
    The surplus value created by these machines results in a net cost (and thus price) reduction for pears, which consumers (among whom the displaced count themselves) benefit from. Technology drives down production costs, which results in cheaper goods and eventually substitution of inferior goods with superior goods, which is why even the underclass can afford things today which would have once been the strict domain of the upper classes.