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If the interest of individual business is to automate away your workforce but the interest of general society is to increase employment we're at a bit of a cros

If the interest of individual business is to automate away your workforce but the interest of general society is to increase employment we're at a bit of a crossroads aren't we? Perhaps Marx was right and it's time to move to a new phase of history.

manicdee 9y ago
Capitalism is pretty much defined by placing a dollar value on production and seeking to maximise returns. The inevitable outcome is increasing profits by reducing the costs of production. There is no “perhaps” about it. There are no policies that will stop a capitalist economy behaving like a capitalist economy.
- runeks 9y ago
  There’s no rule in capitalism about who wins: the consumer decides who wins when she purchases a producer’s product, picked from the store shelf. The producers of the products we purchase are those who survive, because their income is our expenditures (and their expenditures on wages/salaries is our income). You could argue that we choose wrong when we go shopping, but ultimately we decide which businesses have an income and which don’t.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    I think you're missing the point a bit. It's not about our choice as consumers so much as it is the inevitable end of capitalism as a way of distributing property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_history#Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_history#Cap...
  - manicdee 9y ago
    What choice do you have when there is only one provider?
vkou 9y ago
The interest of society is not to increase employment - the interest of society is to increase prosperity. Rounding up all the unemployed people, and forcing them, at gunpoint, to dig ditches and fill them will certainly increase employment, but will not do anything worthwhile for society. (I guess the ones that survive might end up in better shape.) Having them fix potholes or educate children will increase employment, as well as prosperity. (Setting aside the obvious moral problems of the means by which this took place.) Rounding them up and putting them into workhouses, where they build things for the benefit of a few well-connected individuals is how we have traditionally done this. It combines the worst of both worlds. What people forget is that jobs are the means, not the end.
- colemannugent 9y ago
  I agree with your point on increasing employment, but I disagree as to the "interest of society". There is no one interest of society. Even defining prosperity is relative to who is talking. Having the wealthy subsidize the prosperity of the poor is not very prosperous for them.
  - vkou 9y ago
    It's true that society has no particular interest. An ascetic might take issue with increased social prosperity, as would, for entirely different reasons, a workhouse owner.

manicdee 9y ago

Capitalism is pretty much defined by placing a dollar value on production and seeking to maximise returns. The inevitable outcome is increasing profits by reducing the costs of production. There is no “perhaps” about it. There are no policies that will stop a capitalist economy behaving like a capitalist economy.

runeks 9y ago
There’s no rule in capitalism about who wins: the consumer decides who wins when she purchases a producer’s product, picked from the store shelf. The producers of the products we purchase are those who survive, because their income is our expenditures (and their expenditures on wages/salaries is our income). You could argue that we choose wrong when we go shopping, but ultimately we decide which businesses have an income and which don’t.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  I think you're missing the point a bit. It's not about our choice as consumers so much as it is the inevitable end of capitalism as a way of distributing property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_history#Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_history#Cap...
- manicdee 9y ago
  What choice do you have when there is only one provider?

vkou 9y ago

The interest of society is not to increase employment - the interest of society is to increase prosperity. Rounding up all the unemployed people, and forcing them, at gunpoint, to dig ditches and fill them will certainly increase employment, but will not do anything worthwhile for society. (I guess the ones that survive might end up in better shape.) Having them fix potholes or educate children will increase employment, as well as prosperity. (Setting aside the obvious moral problems of the means by which this took place.) Rounding them up and putting them into workhouses, where they build things for the benefit of a few well-connected individuals is how we have traditionally done this. It combines the worst of both worlds. What people forget is that jobs are the means, not the end.

colemannugent 9y ago
I agree with your point on increasing employment, but I disagree as to the "interest of society". There is no one interest of society. Even defining prosperity is relative to who is talking. Having the wealthy subsidize the prosperity of the poor is not very prosperous for them.
- vkou 9y ago
  It's true that society has no particular interest. An ascetic might take issue with increased social prosperity, as would, for entirely different reasons, a workhouse owner.