5 ms·

This is a facile take on the economics of technology. Productivity increased steadily throughout the 20th century and while in the short term that may have eli

by minimax 14y ago

This is a facile take on the economics of technology. Productivity increased steadily throughout the 20th century and while in the short term that may have eliminated certain (mostly unskilled) functions, it didn't lead to widespread unemployment. Improvements in technology move the world forward, there's no reason to feel guilty about it.

aaron695 14y ago
The concept we can keep consuming to keep ourselves out of trouble is naive. We can not sustain the growth required to replace lost jobs, it's just not mathematically possible, the world is finite. Concepts around consumption composing of the arts(Attempting to loophole limited resources) are also misplaced, already we are seeing computer generated actors and artists.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- chatmasta 14y ago
  Sincerely, Adam Smith
rattray 14y ago
There is no reason the 30th century will repeat the same patterns as the 20th. It's certainly true that raw employment numbers in the US haven't dipped significantly since the dawn of industrialization, and they've gotten better around the globe as a whole. But that doesn't mean we'll continue to be able to come up with jobs for people to do as fast as we can come up with ways to make them obsolete. Technological improvement tends to be geometric if I'm not mistaken, and I doubt the same can be said for the creation of meatware-only, service-industry duties. It's also important to keep in mind that real wages for the majority of American workers hasn't risen in the past 40-odd years [citation needed]. Of course, they can buy cooler shit now than they could in the 70's, but that doesn't mean there's no cause for pause when we look at the benefits of technological improvement.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
dclowd9901 14y ago
It just doesn't work that way anymore, especially as we approach the robotics age. I'm pretty sure the jobs everyone's freaking out about are never coming back: 6% unemployment is a vestige of a former world. My concern with OP's idea of a minimum income and the requisite tax that it would require is the very real possibility that a person would rather do nothing than sacrifice 91% of the pay for their hard work. I mean, logisitically, how do you even determine such a tax structure? And if there becomes a generation of people who can sufficiently live with doing no work at all, how do future generations ever bridge that gap, as it inexorably becomes even more gaping.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Here's an arrangement: Tax everyone a flat percentage X%. Collect all the money, and distribute it in living stipends of T/N, where T is the total money and N is the size of the population paying in. Thus everyone gets a stipend of X% of the mean income. Rises and falls in total income will naturally be reflected by the stipend (with a short time-delay for tax collection and stipend distribution to occur), and various markets will eventually balance out between those who just live off the stipend, those who have jobs to earn more, and the owners of the means of production who were taking in all the big money anyway.
- minimax 14y ago
  "I'm pretty sure the jobs everyone's freaking out about are never coming back" There's nothing wrong with that. In 1900 something like 40% of all employment was in agriculture, but improvements in technology have reduced that to 2-3% now (all the while increasing crop yields), but we don't have 40% unemployment because of all those jobs that never came back.
zurn 14y ago
> Productivity increased steadily throughout the 20th century and while in the short term that may have eliminated certain (mostly unskilled) functions, it didn't lead to widespread unemployment It certainly has lead to widespread unemployment especially among younger people. Look at eg. ILO's outlook summary: http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_188797/lang--en/index.htm http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_1...
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
You're ignoring the social and governmental factors. Technological improvement actually did lead to widespread unemployment once: the Great Depression. There was simply no need for so much farm labor after it turned out that unlimited and leveraged stock-market investment wouldn't make returns on every last penny and bushel. (Everyone in those days, no matter their political slant, knew what overproduction was.) The eventual solution was to raise wages, shorten working hours, allow unionization and go to war. I'm only partially joking. On some level, widespread technological unemployment is a sign that our productivity is too high for our designated amount of work that constitutes a "real job" or "full time". http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/ http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/
- eurleif 14y ago
  But it's more efficient to hire 1 worker for 8 hours than 2 workers for 4 hours. The latter has more overhead in terms of training, etc. Why would an employer choose to do that?
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    By the same token, it's more efficient to hire one worker for 16 hours than two workers for 8 hours. Why do employers do that? (Also, the fixed-costs of hiring workers can be somewhat decreased through various means. For example, if you're in the United States, the American employer-sponsored insurance system is so appallingly inefficient that it's obvious low-hanging fruit for reduction of fixed costs. Get rid of it and go universal!)
    - eurleif 14y ago
      >By the same token, it's more efficient to hire one worker for 16 hours than two workers for 8 hours. Not necessarily. Being tired reduces efficiency.
      - gordaco 14y ago
        Which also applies to the 1 man, 8 hours versus 2 men, 4 hours.
neutronicus 14y ago
Looking at real wages versus employment suggests that Labor is taking a beating from Capital in the marketplace.

by minimax 14y ago

aaron695 14y ago

The concept we can keep consuming to keep ourselves out of trouble is naive. We can not sustain the growth required to replace lost jobs, it's just not mathematically possible, the world is finite. Concepts around consumption composing of the arts(Attempting to loophole limited resources) are also misplaced, already we are seeing computer generated actors and artists.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
chatmasta 14y ago
Sincerely, Adam Smith

rattray 14y ago

There is no reason the 30th century will repeat the same patterns as the 20th. It's certainly true that raw employment numbers in the US haven't dipped significantly since the dawn of industrialization, and they've gotten better around the globe as a whole. But that doesn't mean we'll continue to be able to come up with jobs for people to do as fast as we can come up with ways to make them obsolete. Technological improvement tends to be geometric if I'm not mistaken, and I doubt the same can be said for the creation of meatware-only, service-industry duties. It's also important to keep in mind that real wages for the majority of American workers hasn't risen in the past 40-odd years [citation needed]. Of course, they can buy cooler shit now than they could in the 70's, but that doesn't mean there's no cause for pause when we look at the benefits of technological improvement.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

dclowd9901 14y ago

It just doesn't work that way anymore, especially as we approach the robotics age. I'm pretty sure the jobs everyone's freaking out about are never coming back: 6% unemployment is a vestige of a former world. My concern with OP's idea of a minimum income and the requisite tax that it would require is the very real possibility that a person would rather do nothing than sacrifice 91% of the pay for their hard work. I mean, logisitically, how do you even determine such a tax structure? And if there becomes a generation of people who can sufficiently live with doing no work at all, how do future generations ever bridge that gap, as it inexorably becomes even more gaping.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago
Here's an arrangement: Tax everyone a flat percentage X%. Collect all the money, and distribute it in living stipends of T/N, where T is the total money and N is the size of the population paying in. Thus everyone gets a stipend of X% of the mean income. Rises and falls in total income will naturally be reflected by the stipend (with a short time-delay for tax collection and stipend distribution to occur), and various markets will eventually balance out between those who just live off the stipend, those who have jobs to earn more, and the owners of the means of production who were taking in all the big money anyway.
minimax 14y ago
"I'm pretty sure the jobs everyone's freaking out about are never coming back" There's nothing wrong with that. In 1900 something like 40% of all employment was in agriculture, but improvements in technology have reduced that to 2-3% now (all the while increasing crop yields), but we don't have 40% unemployment because of all those jobs that never came back.

zurn 14y ago

> Productivity increased steadily throughout the 20th century and while in the short term that may have eliminated certain (mostly unskilled) functions, it didn't lead to widespread unemployment It certainly has lead to widespread unemployment especially among younger people. Look at eg. ILO's outlook summary: http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_188797/lang--en/index.htm http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_1...

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

You're ignoring the social and governmental factors. Technological improvement actually did lead to widespread unemployment once: the Great Depression. There was simply no need for so much farm labor after it turned out that unlimited and leveraged stock-market investment wouldn't make returns on every last penny and bushel. (Everyone in those days, no matter their political slant, knew what overproduction was.) The eventual solution was to raise wages, shorten working hours, allow unionization and go to war. I'm only partially joking. On some level, widespread technological unemployment is a sign that our productivity is too high for our designated amount of work that constitutes a "real job" or "full time". http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/ http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/

eurleif 14y ago
But it's more efficient to hire 1 worker for 8 hours than 2 workers for 4 hours. The latter has more overhead in terms of training, etc. Why would an employer choose to do that?
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  By the same token, it's more efficient to hire one worker for 16 hours than two workers for 8 hours. Why do employers do that? (Also, the fixed-costs of hiring workers can be somewhat decreased through various means. For example, if you're in the United States, the American employer-sponsored insurance system is so appallingly inefficient that it's obvious low-hanging fruit for reduction of fixed costs. Get rid of it and go universal!)
  - eurleif 14y ago
    >By the same token, it's more efficient to hire one worker for 16 hours than two workers for 8 hours. Not necessarily. Being tired reduces efficiency.
    - gordaco 14y ago
      Which also applies to the 1 man, 8 hours versus 2 men, 4 hours.

neutronicus 14y ago

Looking at real wages versus employment suggests that Labor is taking a beating from Capital in the marketplace.