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I wonder how much Amazon is investing in automated robots for their warehouses, and whether unionization has encouraged them to invest more. Not to be glib, but
by underseacables 6y ago
I wonder how much Amazon is investing in automated robots for their warehouses, and whether unionization has encouraged them to invest more. Not to be glib, but I could imagine Jeff Bezos saying “no man, no problem“
- pydry 6y agoHim treating humans like robots is why they're unionizing in the first place.
- loceng 6y agoAnd society not giving an adequate UBI to help make people anti-exploitation is why unionizing has needed to become a thing.
- maskedoffender 6y agoYou'll just get more and more people believing all work is exploitation and they'll stop working. Then the people still working will have higher taxes, feel that they're being exploited by the people not working, and soon everybody will be unemployed and nobody will be exploited and it'll be paradise.
- loceng 6y agoQuite the unsupported fantasy you've put forward - sounds similar to the argument that once people have enough money they'll stop working, so better pay them only enough to survive - until you include billionaires into the equation, who don't stop working when they have enough to live for 1,000s of years.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoBillionaires are crazy kind of folks. To realize what people are going to do when they don't have to work, look at those in retirement: gardening, choir singing, lotto may be?
- marakv2 6y agoSo disappointed that batman/social reform was never realised by those folk.
- maskedoffender 6y agoRight, billionaires will do whatever they can to earn more, including leaving a country with high tax rates. But a lot of people if guaranteed a minimal quality of living would just stop working and do things that they like (that don't necessarily make money) and that's the whole point of UBI.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- SamoyedFurFluff 6y agoDoing things that they like would still be working. They just don’t have to engage in rat race jobs anymore. They can have the dignity a billionaire has.
- igorkraw 6y agoAlmost yes, except wages for the stuff that needs to be done will rise to the point that you actually earn almost what your labor is worth :-) some of the most important jobs in the world (nurses?!) pay much less than my hobby of sitting in front of a computer and making pretty plots. That's fucked up
- yellowapple 6y ago> You'll just get more and more people believing all work is exploitation and they'll stop working. Which means less labor supply, which means higher labor prices, which means greater incentive for people to work (since wages would no longer be suppressed by the "either I take this predatory offer or I starve to death" effect). > Then the people still working will have higher taxes Not necessarily. That depends on who and what you tax. A land value tax + a tax on income or wealth after a certain point (say, $1m/year) would readily pay for UBI without putting any tax burden on the working class. The other benefits of LVT (like incentivizing denser urbanization and penalizing land speculation) are nice cherries on top.
- dTal 6y ago>Which means less labor supply, which means higher labor prices... ...which means higher prices of good and services, which means that the basic income you had previously settled on is no longer sufficient to survive on. How sure are we that there's a stable equilibrium?
- yellowapple 6y ago> which means higher prices of good and services Only if automation never happens. Clearly that ain't the case, per this very comment section and the topic thereof. Indeed, automation's going to continue anyway, because as automation costs fall they'll eventually undercut labor costs - even those artifically suppressed through coercive means, as is currently the case in any (capitalist or otherwise) society lacking a socioeconomic safety net like UBI. So sooner or later something like UBI is necessary either way (that, or making people do pointless busy work, which is both paternalistic and grossly inefficient).
- PeterisP 6y agoThe better remuneration and conditions the workers have, the more expensive they are, and the more there's an incentive to invest into capital replacing labor so that you have more machines and fewer workers. There are many things that could be automated right now (for example, in the garments industry) but are not because it's currently cheaper to do them in a third world country by poorly paid workers - but the moment those workers would have to be properly paid, the tasks would go away as then it would be cheaper to automate.
- dunefox 6y agoThen those tasks absolutely need to be automated. If you can't even pay living wages in a poorer country then this isn't a task that humans should perform.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoCould it be because these people do robotic jobs?
- lovegoblin 6y agoEven if so, they still deserve to be treated like people.
- Caylio 6y agoYes, treated like people that can be replaced by robots.
- tlibert 6y agoWe all can eventually be replaced and should be careful what precedents we establish now. “First they came for the warehouse workers...”
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoIt didn't happen with industrial revolution, I doubt it will happen now. Robots will not replace plumbers, waiters, teachers, barbers - at least not in the nearest future.
- tlibert 6y agoClearly one of us has more faith in automation.
- WalterBright 6y agoMore accurately "first they came for the weavers."
- tlibert 6y agoWell, the weavers did fight back on their own behalf.