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> automate the job This is never a bad thing. The only bad thing is if your society doesn't account for the potential of automation and just leaves the unemplo

by zanny 9y ago

> automate the job This is never a bad thing. The only bad thing is if your society doesn't account for the potential of automation and just leaves the unemployable destitute. But that is a political problem, not an economic one - being able to produce without any labor is one of the greatest accomplishments of economic development you can possibly have. It does reflect that, in most western countries (and the US in particular) we have a glass house for an economy, propped up in large part by bullshit jobs that exist to satisfy the broader markets demand for comprehensive employment of citizens, and if you throw a pebble in that lake the ripples could break the dam holding a huge portion of the US workforce in employment right now. Bezos is close to being the richest man recognized by western institutions (tyrants around the world probably control more assets, but can't utilize them on demand) and has the potential to spearhead the social and political changes necessary to adapt to the changing economic reality nobody wants to acknowledge, and that his company is near the forefront of bringing about. But that isn't particularly a way to spend money - it is more that he will hold the respect of oligarchs and politicians the world over and might be able to persuade some of them, if he were so persuaded himself, that like global warming this is not a can to just kick indefinitely down the road until overnight you see 50% unemployment and start seeing public hangings of the elite come back into vogue.

pdfernhout 9y ago
Something I put together on this about a decade ago listing about fifty ways society could address this issue (both functional ways and dysfunctional ways for comparison and contrast): http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html "This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."

by zanny 9y ago

pdfernhout 9y ago

Something I put together on this about a decade ago listing about fifty ways society could address this issue (both functional ways and dysfunctional ways for comparison and contrast): http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html "This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."