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In some ways, yes, it actually is bad. Depends on your perspective. As a very simple example, imagine that you were able to fully automate, such that you requi
by unclebucknasty 9y ago
In some ways, yes, it actually is bad. Depends on your perspective.
As a very simple example, imagine that you were able to fully automate, such that you required zero workers. Imagine further that all other businesses did the same.
- harryh 9y agoIf literally all imaginable human work was 100% automated then the cost of goods and services compared to today would be tiny. The poorest member of that society would live like a king from our present day world.
- unclebucknasty 9y ago>If literally all imaginable human work was 100% automated then the cost of goods and services compared to today would be tiny Well, that assumption is pretty general and doesn't account for natural resources/raw materials, energy inputs required for production, or other factors. It would also vary per sector, such that the statement is far from universally true. >The poorest member of that society would live like a king from our present day world But, regardless, there would be some cost for goods. How do you propose the now 100% unemployed population pay for anything, let alone "live like kings"? The answer is that you would need to devise a method of wealth distribution that is orthogonal to capitalism. Say, for instance, a tax that subsidizes everyone else. That, of course, would not be capitalism. The point is that wage labor is fundamental to capitalism. Somewhere between our present state and 100% automation, a capitalist system requires so much intervention that it breaks down.
- chii 9y agoI think taxing property ownership is the only natural conclusion i can draw from such an ultimate end-state. If you own any property, you pay a tax, and that tax is fed to those who do not own property, in such a way that they survive.
- codexon 9y agoThe problem is, the plebians would not be able to get a job to pay for the goods/services no matter how cheap they may become. If you had robots making everything you could possibly want, why would you bother selling any of it to people who don't have any land, natural resources, or rare skills? They wouldn't have anything you want.
- adrianN 9y agoWhy bother selling it at all? You could just give away the things for free. The marginal cost of an item is just the energy needed to produce it. With robots building solar panels or something like that, those costs are negligible.
- codexon 9y agoBecause it still takes effort to give things away for free and as a robot owner, natural resources, land, rare skills can't be automated away.
- Chris2048 9y agoEffort is a human skill, which the premise states is already automated. As are rare skills.
- codexon 9y agoIf you can even automate giving things away without worrying about people hacking/stealing/vandalizing your robots, then wouldn't it also be likely for you to spend all your resources on combat robots to take resources/land from other robot owners instead of wasting them on people that aren't giving you anything you want?
- Chris2048 9y agoWhy would the elite worry about that, life is good in a monopoly, no need to upset the balance.
- chongli 9y agoThe cost would be low, but since nobody would have a job the prices would be astronomical. Multiply people's purchasing power by a million, great, but a million times zero is still zero.
- tonyedgecombe 9y agoNo, capitalism would eat itself, you can't run an economy without consumers.
- ddnb 9y agoOne could say it would hang itself by its own rope.
- morugin 9y ago>The poorest member of that society would live like a king from our present day world. You forget things such as: meaningful work, respect from society, crime, cultural differences between the poor and the rich, interclass upward mobility (see any sociology textbook), intellectual stimulation.
- lazaroclapp 9y agoSounds like a post-scarcity utopia to me, depending on how large the set of "all businesses" is and what we do with the surplus in production :)
- unclebucknasty 9y agoHa! Sign me up. Actually, I like the idea of work. But, at some point, we will have to "artificially" employ people or, of course, implement a UBI. But, even with the latter, we'll have to re-imagine our relationship to work and its role as a source of self-worth. There's this idea that without work, we'd all just instantly self-actualize and write poetry or paint masterpieces. Not sure why we imagine this vs. the more likely reality that we'd instead sit around sharing cat memes, making heinous YouTube comments, and generally getting dumber. I'm not sure if society is really ready for a post-work world.
- tonyedgecombe 9y agoI'd rather people sat around watching cat videos than we forced them to dig holes and fill them in again.
- unclebucknasty 9y agoWell, that "artificial" employment I mentioned would presumably be at least somewhat fulfilling--i.e. pretty much what you see today. By artificial, I didn't mean running in hamster wheels or digging holes. I meant more that we employ people for jobs that we could technically automate. Of course, that's not ideal either. My main point was that a UBI (or not having to work) wouldn't be the instant panacea that some suggest, leading to a sudden heightening of the human race as we are collectively released to pursue our higher purposes.
- Chris2048 9y agoOn the other hand, I'd sooner they dig the holes, than make more youtube videos..
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nkrisc 9y agoI think at that point we could say we "finished" capitalism and we'd have to move on to another system to keep society functioning.