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This sounds good, but I think people are quite sensible when they refuse to accept it. Broadly, people right now are sustaining themselves via their own effort
by Bartweiss 10y ago
This sounds good, but I think people are quite sensible when they refuse to accept it.
Broadly, people right now are sustaining themselves via their own efforts - if your boss quits paying you, you can take your work elsewhere. It's a mutually beneficial exchange, so there's no reason to think anyone is going to cancel it unless they get a better alternative. (The situation for capital is a bit more complex, but the argument carries.)
The utopian logic of automation suggests that people will be provided benefits without mutually-beneficial exchange - which threatens the outcome where someone else can say "you know, I'd be wealthier if I quit supplying you with food".
For someone currently limited to working 28 hours per week so that their employer can avoid giving them health care, this is a terrifying proposition. They're painfully aware that the people most likely to own the robots have a track record of choosing personal wealth over the well-being of employees (or even the companies they own - Sears is not explainable by pointing to ruthlessly efficient capitalism). That person might not be comfortable right now, but they're not living on charity either, and precedent suggests that living on charity is a terrible place to be.
Obviously none of this is inevitable; even the existing logic requires support and agreements. Labor and capital can't be exercised freely without someone around preventing slavery, robbery, and appropriation - reliable systems can be built. But right now I think its unfair to suggest that people are valuing themselves by their careers as an emotional matter. The reality is that the emotional reaction to unemployment is largely driven by the practical fear of being rendered optional.
- selimthegrim 10y agoLampert is a well known ideologue/Randroid (regarding Sears)
- Bartweiss 10y agoPrecisely. You can pitch Sears as "Lampert lined his own pockets with buybacks, then tried to salvage the damage done" or "Lampert was a moron who implemented bad policies". The truth appears to be some combination - he seemed to genuinely think stock buybacks were better than capital investment, and thought his lean-and-mean interbranch competition would produce savings. What you can't do is argue that Sears is the product of actually efficient markets. Lampert selected for brutal, Randian techniques even when they were far less rewarding than taking a decent, eusocial approach. It's like cargo cult capitalism - he saw that sometimes successful businesses harm people, and decided that if he just harmed enough people he'd have a successful business.
- RodericDay 10y ago> Broadly, people right now are sustaining themselves via their own efforts I don't think this is really true, and although a useful myth for social cohesion, it ends up being the source of all sorts of problems.
- Bartweiss 10y agoOh man, that's a way bigger question. I suppose I can exempt my statement by saying "within the confines of the economic and political landscape, people are hired and paid as a mutually beneficial exchange". That way we escape the larger question of whether the exchange is actually enough to sustain people. But yeah, there's a more interesting and unnerving point to be discussed there. My assumption is that you're talking about various indirect subsidies that keep people above water (even things like subsidizing roads at the expense of non-drivers so people can drive to work). I largely agree, but I'd be curious if you're talking about something deeper than that?
- RodericDay 10y agoIt's pretty much just that. I've read some pretty intense thought-provoking books recently, "Marx's Inferno" in particular, which I don't feel comfortable paraphrasing, which make the rabbit hole seem way deeper. However, I was mostly thinking of just that.