4 ms·

People get very attached to their theory of how economies and civilizations work. On one side we have "Luddites" who think that machines are taking over. We ha

by netcan 13y ago

People get very attached to their theory of how economies and civilizations work. On one side we have "Luddites" who think that machines are taking over. We have no use for most people's labour and we need to start dealing with that by having a guaranteed basic income or somesuch. Seems like common sense. What use are all the people that were working in factories or data entry or whatnot in the robot age! On the other side we have Misans? Ludwigians? (I dunno, I need a name for Ludwig von Mises people). They point out that this current crop of Luddites are just following in the footsteps of historical Luddites that think everyone will be unemployed because of tractors or looms. The sky never fell. Economies sort themselves out. Realistically, we don't know. Technology has been moving very fast for a long time and its accelerating. We don't know what this does to economic paradigms. How can anyone be as confident as so many people seem to be about this stuff.

wutbrodo 13y ago
Actually, the Luddites in the current conversation are the ones decrying technological advancement itself. On the policy side, they tend to favor propping up old, inefficient industries (essentially subsidizing them at the expense of the rest of the population). A basic income has been considered common sense in economic theory for a long, long time (as in, it's been discussed by economists for at least a century). It has less to do with the obsolescence of human labor than it does to the fact that it's simply grossly inefficient to tie "the ability to take entrepreneurial risk" to "I was born middle-class or higher".
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  And thank you for crystallising that thought in my head - we are seeing a boom in entrepreneurship because the cost and risk of being one is dropping. And drop it further still will see an increase also - put your faith in human's need to do creative productive work. No matter what.
AJ007 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics

by netcan 13y ago

wutbrodo 13y ago

Actually, the Luddites in the current conversation are the ones decrying technological advancement itself. On the policy side, they tend to favor propping up old, inefficient industries (essentially subsidizing them at the expense of the rest of the population). A basic income has been considered common sense in economic theory for a long, long time (as in, it's been discussed by economists for at least a century). It has less to do with the obsolescence of human labor than it does to the fact that it's simply grossly inefficient to tie "the ability to take entrepreneurial risk" to "I was born middle-class or higher".

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
And thank you for crystallising that thought in my head - we are seeing a boom in entrepreneurship because the cost and risk of being one is dropping. And drop it further still will see an increase also - put your faith in human's need to do creative productive work. No matter what.

AJ007 13y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics