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See, the company should really be incentivizing this sort of thing. If you automate your team out of a job, great - you all get a pension at 33% wages as long a

See, the company should really be incentivizing this sort of thing. If you automate your team out of a job, great - you all get a pension at 33% wages as long as the company is in business and 6 months to find a new job. Company saves a lot of money, workers are incentivized to this sort of behavior, and you could probably handle the upkeep by offering to keep one or two employees on at full pay if they'd prefer, or stipulating a day or two a month to perform any necessary maintenance on your automation. But that's probably a pipe dream; it would essentially mean funneling capital to those who produce value, which is apparently a ridiculous concept in this modern economy.

ohazi 10y ago
> you all get a pension at 33% wages as long as the company is in business and 6 months to find a new job Boss: "Or, and take a minute to appreciate my cleverness before you respond, how about zero, and don't let the door hit you on the way out!" These improvements eventually materialize regardless of any incentives for this behavior. Perhaps it would come marginally sooner with an incentive. But since non-owner workers will no longer have a relationship where they provide continued value to their employer, the company is (correctly?) motivated to screw them over (think single vs. repeated prisoner's dilemma). The company could even pretend to offer the incentive to get these improvements sooner, and then fire them anyway. The game theoretic optimum for capital owners is to screw over their (soon-to-be former) employees. This is why some suggest a tax on automation -- there's a market externality here that isn't going to magically go away.
whack 10y ago
In most successful companies, the guy who came up with the idea and his manager will be heavily rewarded, and taken care of in a meaningful way. Everyone else is given some time to either find a different team to work for, or asked to leave and find another job where they are actually contributing something of value. Although this might seem tragic in the immediate aftermath, it's precisely activities like this which lead to GDP growth and economic prosperity. The biggest gains of course still go to the business owners and executives. Not the working class. Hence why we need higher taxes on the wealthy and a stronger social safety net.

ohazi 10y ago

> you all get a pension at 33% wages as long as the company is in business and 6 months to find a new job Boss: "Or, and take a minute to appreciate my cleverness before you respond, how about zero, and don't let the door hit you on the way out!" These improvements eventually materialize regardless of any incentives for this behavior. Perhaps it would come marginally sooner with an incentive. But since non-owner workers will no longer have a relationship where they provide continued value to their employer, the company is (correctly?) motivated to screw them over (think single vs. repeated prisoner's dilemma). The company could even pretend to offer the incentive to get these improvements sooner, and then fire them anyway. The game theoretic optimum for capital owners is to screw over their (soon-to-be former) employees. This is why some suggest a tax on automation -- there's a market externality here that isn't going to magically go away.

whack 10y ago

In most successful companies, the guy who came up with the idea and his manager will be heavily rewarded, and taken care of in a meaningful way. Everyone else is given some time to either find a different team to work for, or asked to leave and find another job where they are actually contributing something of value. Although this might seem tragic in the immediate aftermath, it's precisely activities like this which lead to GDP growth and economic prosperity. The biggest gains of course still go to the business owners and executives. Not the working class. Hence why we need higher taxes on the wealthy and a stronger social safety net.