7 ms·

The problem is not with automation's obsolescence of human wage labor, but with capitalism's lack of functionality to deal with the consolidation of wealth that

by krisdol 11y ago

The problem is not with automation's obsolescence of human wage labor, but with capitalism's lack of functionality to deal with the consolidation of wealth that follows. Capitalists may not feel comfortable with workers owning the means of production, but they will have to make some concessions to society (example: single payer healthcare, free education, basic income, something else?) in order to maintain a healthy stability. Capitalism makes production incredibly efficient (a great thing) but it is not the best at improving the human condition when there's no profit to be made directly.

elviejo 11y ago
Buying sahres requires, capital... Which if you didn't inherit.. Requires a job, that gives you a surplus. But since human labor won't be necessary.. Then there is no way of owning capital.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Which if you ex have unconditional basic income isn't necessary. The major problem is actually those who are trapped in the midst of the current paradigm and the post-capitalist one. They are the ones who neither benefit from the progress of technology nor from being able to get a job in technology.
everyone 11y ago
Yeah. Articles on this topic always seem to miss the point. Freeing humans from labour ought to be great. Theres no reason for everyone to have a job, many jobs nowadays are just pointless busy work anyway(1). The real barrier here isnt technological, its social. We need to abandon some very deeply ingrained ideals about work that date back to the dawn of civilisation, namely that a man must work to be apportioned his daily food. (1)http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
- x5n1 11y ago
  True. But how do you determine how much anyone deserves? That's one critical problem we have to solve. Because it's fine to say that society should redistribute resources, we already do that so we can do more of that. But how do you determine who gets what and how much of it? What about children, if I were being selfish under such conditions I might want to produce 10-20 children all from different women. How do we stop anti-social behavior if people are not bound to work? Also people are weird and often act irrationally. What forces them to act rationally is work. It's regimented and structured. Without that regiment and structure to keep people's mind and energy occupied, how do you control people? Without social control, society is not possible.
  - everyone 11y ago
    Those are very interesting points. I certainly dont have the answers, and answering these sort of questions correctly is the challenge we are facing. The values we are discussing do necessarily arise along with civilisation and specialisation. Perhaps for inspiration we should look at uncivilised societies, hunter gatherers who certainly must toil for food (hunt and gather) but not actually work per se. I will have a stab at answering your questions with my own answers however.. Q:But how do you determine who gets what and how much of it? A: Everyone gets enough for shelter, food, electricity, education, healthcare, other things which are considered basic necessities. Essentially just give people the basics rather than force them through pointless and wasteful hoops. Q: I might want to produce 10-20 children all from different women. A: I dont really see any problem here, people can choose to have children or not. Unless there is a problem with overpopulation but that is another issue. Generally the trend with more affluence is less children. Q: how do you control people? A: Laws would still exist, and there would need to be police and a judiciary system to enforce them. Obviously there is some work that will always be necessary (farming, military, police, decision-making) Once all of that can be fully automated then humans would be obsolete anyway. ps. This is a very interesting debate that may be relevant at some stage in the future but I'm betting that global industrial society will undergo a significant collapse in the next 50 - 100 years rendering all this moot.
bad_user 11y ago
> Capitalism makes production incredibly efficient (a great thing) I'm not so sure. If you think about it, capitalism along with the industrial age are only possible because of and have been subsidized by fossil fuels. By subsidized, I mean that this increase in productivity is a simple conversion of energy from fossil fuels to products and services many of which we don't really need. The industrial age is basically the usage of cheap and readily available fossil fuels. But that also has had a great cost to our environment and this is an implicit cost that has been ignored. Furthermore, in this modern age most advances that we've made tend to be zero sum. For example the advances that we've made in health-care tend to be nullified by modern cronic diseases, like diabetes, obesity, heart diseases, allergies or cancer. And why do these happen? We live in really crowded and polluted cities of course. And many scientists have been warning us for example about the "western diet", a diet consisting of mostly corn, soy, animals raised from corn and mono-cultures raised with pesticides and transported thousands of miles before reaching consumers, which is basically what you get when industrializing our food chain. And we may have access to education or information, yet we are burdened by debt, we are none the wiser and we are probably not happier. The only real advances we've made as a species has been in the form of individuals rights, which have been eroded lately in the name of security. So personally I'm having a hard time lately seeing what's great about it. > Capitalists may not feel comfortable with workers owning the means of production, but they will have to make some concessions to society (example: single payer healthcare, free education, basic income, something else?) in order to maintain a healthy stability. Capitalism only works if the means of production is not concentrated in few hands. Once that happens, then the whole system goes crumbling down because who is going to pay for those products and services? The people that are on a basic income and that are also paid by those with the means for production? No, that's not going to happen because it doesn't make sense. More realistic would be to say that we'll end up with a handful of masters that have billions of slaves. Unless we change the economic system to face the new reality of course.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  You should be careful to say Type II diabetes. Technology is a pretty huge win against Type I. It's also unlikely that technology has directly increased mortality from cancer (it's almost certainly indirectly increased it by enabling more people to live and to live longer).
netcan 11y ago
I find it strange that I hear a lot more reference to the "means of production" concept in marxism these days. I always thought it's a concept from the weakest parts of marxism. But besides that, it's an increasingly ethereal concept. In Marx' day, you could think of "means of production" as land, factories & tools mostly. At least, thinking of it in these few concrete terms related very closely to most of the economic activity around you. In a communist society, workers own the factory and farmers own the land, fairly concrete. Marx then suggests (as I said, I always though it was very weak) that a proletariate state would just own all means of production and workers in general would own it. So, he breaks from the simple and concrete concept pretty quickly. Still, at least you can picture what you're thinking of. But in today's world, what is Google's "means of production?" What's Apple's? HSBC's? Disney's? Uber's? Uber is more fiction-made-matter than a bunch of "capital." I find it surprising. I mean Marxism/Communism/Socialism has other concepts that I think are more relevant and less contrived that I'm surprised we don't hear more about. The idea of historical progression seems appropriate given the rate of change we see today. The Marxist revolutionary concept that when the majority don't have a stake in the status quo, revolutions happen... that seems relevant given the trends in inequality. Global solidarity. At least "labour power" isn't making its back way into general political vernacular.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Well, one way to do it is to make sure most shares of a company are owned by the workers, subcontractors, the customers, etc. Like the many co-op consumer cooperations, which usually have an upper limit of 2000$ investment per person, and are owned by hundredthousands of people at once.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- krisdol 11y ago
  In these days, means of production may also mean the company resources & venture capital, with so much production being digital.
liquidise 11y ago
> it is not the best at improving the human condition I argue the answer is not in publicly funded, non-capitalist services. It is in general-case and appropriate business regulations. Capitalism is a winner-takes-his-as-much-as-possible system. Left unfettered, it can and will find unjust profit in exploiting its workers. At scale, even customers can suffer for some time until a competitor rises. By properly regulating businesses, we are able to more confidently say that opportunity is granted to all, and personal responsibility is left to the individual. To me, that is a win. The charge of society, in my view, is not to improve the human condition for all. It is to ensure the opportunities. As an aside, let us be clear that to improve the human condition for some, you do so by reducing the financial condition of others. In a capitalist society, your financial condition directly correlates to your standard of living, granted it experiences drastic diminishing returns. So it could be said that reducing someones fiscal condition therefore reduces their human condition. The human conditional philanthropy is strikes me as a bit ironic from this vantage point.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  technology moves (increasingly) faster than legislation so thats going to be difficult to do.
  - liquidise 11y ago
    Point taken, but i'd suggest it also can work the other way. The faster technology moves, the faster competitors can enter markets. More competitors generally means the consumer (and worker) wins.

by krisdol 11y ago

elviejo 11y ago

Buying sahres requires, capital... Which if you didn't inherit.. Requires a job, that gives you a surplus. But since human labor won't be necessary.. Then there is no way of owning capital.

ThomPete 11y ago
Which if you ex have unconditional basic income isn't necessary. The major problem is actually those who are trapped in the midst of the current paradigm and the post-capitalist one. They are the ones who neither benefit from the progress of technology nor from being able to get a job in technology.

everyone 11y ago

Yeah. Articles on this topic always seem to miss the point. Freeing humans from labour ought to be great. Theres no reason for everyone to have a job, many jobs nowadays are just pointless busy work anyway(1). The real barrier here isnt technological, its social. We need to abandon some very deeply ingrained ideals about work that date back to the dawn of civilisation, namely that a man must work to be apportioned his daily food. (1)http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

x5n1 11y ago
True. But how do you determine how much anyone deserves? That's one critical problem we have to solve. Because it's fine to say that society should redistribute resources, we already do that so we can do more of that. But how do you determine who gets what and how much of it? What about children, if I were being selfish under such conditions I might want to produce 10-20 children all from different women. How do we stop anti-social behavior if people are not bound to work? Also people are weird and often act irrationally. What forces them to act rationally is work. It's regimented and structured. Without that regiment and structure to keep people's mind and energy occupied, how do you control people? Without social control, society is not possible.
- everyone 11y ago
  Those are very interesting points. I certainly dont have the answers, and answering these sort of questions correctly is the challenge we are facing. The values we are discussing do necessarily arise along with civilisation and specialisation. Perhaps for inspiration we should look at uncivilised societies, hunter gatherers who certainly must toil for food (hunt and gather) but not actually work per se. I will have a stab at answering your questions with my own answers however.. Q:But how do you determine who gets what and how much of it? A: Everyone gets enough for shelter, food, electricity, education, healthcare, other things which are considered basic necessities. Essentially just give people the basics rather than force them through pointless and wasteful hoops. Q: I might want to produce 10-20 children all from different women. A: I dont really see any problem here, people can choose to have children or not. Unless there is a problem with overpopulation but that is another issue. Generally the trend with more affluence is less children. Q: how do you control people? A: Laws would still exist, and there would need to be police and a judiciary system to enforce them. Obviously there is some work that will always be necessary (farming, military, police, decision-making) Once all of that can be fully automated then humans would be obsolete anyway. ps. This is a very interesting debate that may be relevant at some stage in the future but I'm betting that global industrial society will undergo a significant collapse in the next 50 - 100 years rendering all this moot.

bad_user 11y ago

> Capitalism makes production incredibly efficient (a great thing) I'm not so sure. If you think about it, capitalism along with the industrial age are only possible because of and have been subsidized by fossil fuels. By subsidized, I mean that this increase in productivity is a simple conversion of energy from fossil fuels to products and services many of which we don't really need. The industrial age is basically the usage of cheap and readily available fossil fuels. But that also has had a great cost to our environment and this is an implicit cost that has been ignored. Furthermore, in this modern age most advances that we've made tend to be zero sum. For example the advances that we've made in health-care tend to be nullified by modern cronic diseases, like diabetes, obesity, heart diseases, allergies or cancer. And why do these happen? We live in really crowded and polluted cities of course. And many scientists have been warning us for example about the "western diet", a diet consisting of mostly corn, soy, animals raised from corn and mono-cultures raised with pesticides and transported thousands of miles before reaching consumers, which is basically what you get when industrializing our food chain. And we may have access to education or information, yet we are burdened by debt, we are none the wiser and we are probably not happier. The only real advances we've made as a species has been in the form of individuals rights, which have been eroded lately in the name of security. So personally I'm having a hard time lately seeing what's great about it. > Capitalists may not feel comfortable with workers owning the means of production, but they will have to make some concessions to society (example: single payer healthcare, free education, basic income, something else?) in order to maintain a healthy stability. Capitalism only works if the means of production is not concentrated in few hands. Once that happens, then the whole system goes crumbling down because who is going to pay for those products and services? The people that are on a basic income and that are also paid by those with the means for production? No, that's not going to happen because it doesn't make sense. More realistic would be to say that we'll end up with a handful of masters that have billions of slaves. Unless we change the economic system to face the new reality of course.

maxerickson 11y ago
You should be careful to say Type II diabetes. Technology is a pretty huge win against Type I. It's also unlikely that technology has directly increased mortality from cancer (it's almost certainly indirectly increased it by enabling more people to live and to live longer).

netcan 11y ago

I find it strange that I hear a lot more reference to the "means of production" concept in marxism these days. I always thought it's a concept from the weakest parts of marxism. But besides that, it's an increasingly ethereal concept. In Marx' day, you could think of "means of production" as land, factories & tools mostly. At least, thinking of it in these few concrete terms related very closely to most of the economic activity around you. In a communist society, workers own the factory and farmers own the land, fairly concrete. Marx then suggests (as I said, I always though it was very weak) that a proletariate state would just own all means of production and workers in general would own it. So, he breaks from the simple and concrete concept pretty quickly. Still, at least you can picture what you're thinking of. But in today's world, what is Google's "means of production?" What's Apple's? HSBC's? Disney's? Uber's? Uber is more fiction-made-matter than a bunch of "capital." I find it surprising. I mean Marxism/Communism/Socialism has other concepts that I think are more relevant and less contrived that I'm surprised we don't hear more about. The idea of historical progression seems appropriate given the rate of change we see today. The Marxist revolutionary concept that when the majority don't have a stake in the status quo, revolutions happen... that seems relevant given the trends in inequality. Global solidarity. At least "labour power" isn't making its back way into general political vernacular.

kuschku 11y ago
Well, one way to do it is to make sure most shares of a company are owned by the workers, subcontractors, the customers, etc. Like the many co-op consumer cooperations, which usually have an upper limit of 2000$ investment per person, and are owned by hundredthousands of people at once.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
krisdol 11y ago
In these days, means of production may also mean the company resources & venture capital, with so much production being digital.

liquidise 11y ago

> it is not the best at improving the human condition I argue the answer is not in publicly funded, non-capitalist services. It is in general-case and appropriate business regulations. Capitalism is a winner-takes-his-as-much-as-possible system. Left unfettered, it can and will find unjust profit in exploiting its workers. At scale, even customers can suffer for some time until a competitor rises. By properly regulating businesses, we are able to more confidently say that opportunity is granted to all, and personal responsibility is left to the individual. To me, that is a win. The charge of society, in my view, is not to improve the human condition for all. It is to ensure the opportunities. As an aside, let us be clear that to improve the human condition for some, you do so by reducing the financial condition of others. In a capitalist society, your financial condition directly correlates to your standard of living, granted it experiences drastic diminishing returns. So it could be said that reducing someones fiscal condition therefore reduces their human condition. The human conditional philanthropy is strikes me as a bit ironic from this vantage point.

ThomPete 11y ago
technology moves (increasingly) faster than legislation so thats going to be difficult to do.
- liquidise 11y ago
  Point taken, but i'd suggest it also can work the other way. The faster technology moves, the faster competitors can enter markets. More competitors generally means the consumer (and worker) wins.