6 ms·

Robots are cool. Even though amazon is hiring, they employ robots for a reason, it means that fewer employees are needed per a unit of work. In the absence of r

Robots are cool. Even though amazon is hiring, they employ robots for a reason, it means that fewer employees are needed per a unit of work. In the absence of robots, more employees would be hired. I like efficiency. I think abundance is great. Our economic system ensures that those things will not help the great mass of people in our society.

jackcosgrove 9y ago
Whoever said it, the quote about digging with spoons instead of shovels and backhoes comes to mind. Productivity is the root of economic surplus. It's the lodestone of the economy. If we stop increasing productivity, the pie stops growing. Productivity is the reason the poor today live better than a king or emperor of old.
- darpa_escapee 9y ago
  The problem isn't increased productivity, it's how the revenue generated from increased productivity is distributed in society.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  > Whoever said it, the quote about digging with spoons instead of shovels and backhoes comes to mind. Often ascribed to Milton Friedman, but it seems more likely to be William Aberhart originally. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/
- whytaka 9y ago
  Yes but perhaps we don't need a bigger pie, we just need it shared more widely.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  It's patently obvious that the freshly baked pie is being hoarded by an elite. Average wages and compensation have been almost entirely stagnant since the 1970s. At best, this unequal growth is irrelevant to most people; in all likelihood, it's driving rampant inflation of house prices, rents and an array of essentials like healthcare and education. If trickle-down economics ever worked, it certainly doesn't work now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/08/researchers-have-answered-a-big-question-about-the-decline-of-the-middle-class/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/08/resea...
adventured 9y ago
> Our economic system ensures that those things will not help the great mass of people in our society. If that were actually true, why do the most productive economies nearly universally have the highest median incomes? That includes the US, which has nearly the world's highest median & disposable income levels. If it worked as you're implying, the US would have a terrible median income. In fact, our economic system - and variations of free market economics broadly - is precisely the reason so many do so well. That's true in all developed nations on the planet, from the US to Canada to Scandinavian countries to Japan to Australia to Germany to Switzerland. To the extent a nation lacks such, is the extent to which they suffer poverty at the median vs developed nations. Most of those same high median income nations that have taken aggressive advantage of free'ish market economics, are able to provide robust healthcare systems and social safety nets, precisely because of the glorious abundance the system makes possible.
- SapphireSun 9y ago
  It kinda worked after world war two in the wake of the New Deal (which incidentally was instituted in a depression and a >90% top tax rate). In the 1970s, deregulation took over and worker wages began to stagnate and decline. Tax rates fell. Since 2007 when the banks imploded and were bailed out on the people's dime (the people weren't bailed out), we've been unable to fix the economy with monetary policy. Demand has been slack for a decade and economists are freaking out. What's going on? Why is civil society disintegrating? Why is the fascist right rising? Why are white people's life expectancy declining? Neoliberal reforms (deregulation, private capital, sale of nationalized industries, etc) that were instituted in central america, south america, Russia, and others basically destroyed them. In particular, the wave of desperate people arriving at our borders are in significant part due to US support of neoliberal policy and the support of violent regimes in El Salvador, Guatamala, Chile, Argentina, and on and on. You have to ask yourself, why are we facing problems now? We're the global superpower! Even more so, why are the economic maladies present throughout the western world at a time when we should be at the peak of our civilization? This was something that stumped me for a long time. Shouldn't problems be regional? How is it possible for Donald Trump, Brexit, Geert Wilders, and Marine le Penn to occur at the same time? There's a systemic problem. Think about it.

jackcosgrove 9y ago

Whoever said it, the quote about digging with spoons instead of shovels and backhoes comes to mind. Productivity is the root of economic surplus. It's the lodestone of the economy. If we stop increasing productivity, the pie stops growing. Productivity is the reason the poor today live better than a king or emperor of old.

darpa_escapee 9y ago
The problem isn't increased productivity, it's how the revenue generated from increased productivity is distributed in society.
sokoloff 9y ago
> Whoever said it, the quote about digging with spoons instead of shovels and backhoes comes to mind. Often ascribed to Milton Friedman, but it seems more likely to be William Aberhart originally. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/
whytaka 9y ago
Yes but perhaps we don't need a bigger pie, we just need it shared more widely.
jdietrich 9y ago
It's patently obvious that the freshly baked pie is being hoarded by an elite. Average wages and compensation have been almost entirely stagnant since the 1970s. At best, this unequal growth is irrelevant to most people; in all likelihood, it's driving rampant inflation of house prices, rents and an array of essentials like healthcare and education. If trickle-down economics ever worked, it certainly doesn't work now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/08/researchers-have-answered-a-big-question-about-the-decline-of-the-middle-class/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/08/resea...

adventured 9y ago

> Our economic system ensures that those things will not help the great mass of people in our society. If that were actually true, why do the most productive economies nearly universally have the highest median incomes? That includes the US, which has nearly the world's highest median & disposable income levels. If it worked as you're implying, the US would have a terrible median income. In fact, our economic system - and variations of free market economics broadly - is precisely the reason so many do so well. That's true in all developed nations on the planet, from the US to Canada to Scandinavian countries to Japan to Australia to Germany to Switzerland. To the extent a nation lacks such, is the extent to which they suffer poverty at the median vs developed nations. Most of those same high median income nations that have taken aggressive advantage of free'ish market economics, are able to provide robust healthcare systems and social safety nets, precisely because of the glorious abundance the system makes possible.

SapphireSun 9y ago
It kinda worked after world war two in the wake of the New Deal (which incidentally was instituted in a depression and a >90% top tax rate). In the 1970s, deregulation took over and worker wages began to stagnate and decline. Tax rates fell. Since 2007 when the banks imploded and were bailed out on the people's dime (the people weren't bailed out), we've been unable to fix the economy with monetary policy. Demand has been slack for a decade and economists are freaking out. What's going on? Why is civil society disintegrating? Why is the fascist right rising? Why are white people's life expectancy declining? Neoliberal reforms (deregulation, private capital, sale of nationalized industries, etc) that were instituted in central america, south america, Russia, and others basically destroyed them. In particular, the wave of desperate people arriving at our borders are in significant part due to US support of neoliberal policy and the support of violent regimes in El Salvador, Guatamala, Chile, Argentina, and on and on. You have to ask yourself, why are we facing problems now? We're the global superpower! Even more so, why are the economic maladies present throughout the western world at a time when we should be at the peak of our civilization? This was something that stumped me for a long time. Shouldn't problems be regional? How is it possible for Donald Trump, Brexit, Geert Wilders, and Marine le Penn to occur at the same time? There's a systemic problem. Think about it.