Do Republicans have a plan for unemployment caused by automation? >>MOD WARNING<<

If they tax us all, and they do, they are responsible for representing all of us&#8230; including the ones displaced by automation. To ignore that things will have to change and plan for a time when there is wide scale unemployment is to promote anarchy, not democracy.

 

You, my dear, have done what I like to call 'failure to multiply'. In one hundred years, humanity will have, for most intents and purposes, ascended into divinity. In 50 years? We're going to have gotten pretty damn close. 50 years means computers over 33 million times as powerful as they are currently.

 

"Represent us"?
Congressmen do that.

None of this changes the facts I stated or the conclusion based upon them.

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And...?

 

I answered him. The government is required, by definition to promote the general welfare of the people. Allowing people to go unemployed with no plan to do anything about it but promote the inevitable anarchy that will come from that is not promoting the general welfare.

I happen to think the government will do its job and make plans as automation takes more and more jobs. It is within the jurisdiction of the government to make plans, implement plans, and make adjustment to plans that address the needs of the people. To think our government will simply ignore this problem is unthinkable and unlikely. What is unknown is the plans they will make. Do they have a plan now? Not that I know of and that's the focus of this thread, not the Constitution.

 

Who needs one s automation increases employment

 

Allowing people to go unemployed? What's the alternative? Forcing people to go employed? Forcing people to employ? How does that promote general welfare?

I also love the allusion to a complete failure of government if it doesn't insure a private source of income. Anarchy is not inevitable in the absence of centralized control of the economy.

 

Tax breaks for the rich, demonize the poor. All the while hoping against evidence that something will trickle down on their heads. It's really the only thing in the republican playbook anymore. They've long ceased to be the party of ideas.

 

Incorrect.
It has the power to do so; nothing requires it to do so.
Earlier, you agreed to this premise.

 

What I think would be interesting to see is if we get automation to the point where things are so abundant that they really don't have much value, especially when it comes to human needs. If we could automate agriculture to the point where we pretty much just let machines run the farm and supply chain, it would be amazing. The problem of course becomes maintenance, improvements, programming, etc, but I'd think if we got to the point of automation being a part of our daily lives we'd hit a "star trek" ideal where people would want to maintain this stuff just out of interest. Think of how different our lives would be if money didn't exist because it didn't have to. Unfortunately you have the people who want power over others more than anything, and they'll prevent this from happening.

 

Yes, politicians represent us. There will be a political solution to this because government has the ability to do something about it, even if you think the Constitution doesn't require it. It doesn't prohibit it either.

 

I'm sure you've heard of the CCC, a government program designed to put people to work when there wasn't work otherwise available. The government, because it is a representative one, can and will do things necessary for the people that business won't, usually because of a lack of profit involved.

Do you actually think the government is going to allow most of the population to go unemployed and do nothing, make no plans to change things so they don't just die of starvation, because they have no money? Please.

 

OK, fair enough. It will be obligated to do so because the politicians that control spending are obligated to the voters&#8230;. the people most likely to be unemployed and expecting assistance.

 

What does this have to do with my position?

 

Your point is that the government isn't required to do anything. My point is the people that make decisions in the government will be obligated to do something because they are elected. The government without people is just a piece of paper. People in government will help people displaced by automation or they will also be looking for a job. This is pragmatic, not hypothetical.

 

Doesn't the employee expect to profit?

All trade involves someone trading something they value less than the thing they are trading for. This difference in value is profit. Thus, every single trade involves profit of some kind or another. It doesn't matter if we are talking about labor or employer. BOTH profit from the transaction. You can't eat labor. Labor has to be converted into something of value that can be traded for more than the value of the labor.

Political profit is just as driven by self interest as entrepreneurial profit. Every single instance of government attempting to command employment ends up looking exactly like Venezuela, and the only reason the WPA wasn't a complete and utter disaster is that the private competition against the WPA was not outlawed, & was far more successful at putting people to good use.

 

My point isn't that the government is necessarily going to employ people, simply that has happened in the past&#8230; as a solution to a problem. The premise of this thread is asking if politicians are formulating plans for the inevitable job loss that is coming with automation. Can they do that? Certainly. Are they required by the Constitution or laws to make a plan? No. Will politicians be obligated, by virtue of holding an elected office, to find remedies? Most likely yes.

Whether or not you think the government is successful at solving problems is not the issue. There is no other entity capable of solving large problems of the populace, like massive unemployment- the same kind of problem that the CCC addressed- than the government.

 

No...
My point is that there is no "plan" from the GOP - more broadly, conservatives - because we see government as a means to protect all of our rights, not provide means so that others can exercise theirs.

 

I hope you like your tax bill going sky high to provide all the police and jails you're going to need then. The government will either deal with the unemployed in a positive, proactive way, or the tax payer will be paying lots to incarcerate all the people that steal or commit other crimes because they have no job and no way to feed their family.

What you don't seem to get is that we already do this on a smaller scale. We don't need to try to do it on a larger scale. It will be cost prohibitive without some major changes. We will need a much different solution when the numbers of unemployed are exponentially higher due to automation.

 

I'm all for punishing people that break the law.
I'm against the state forcing people to provide goods and services to others w/o compensation.
Why aren't you?

 

The ccc did not solve the problem of the populace that you're referring to. The entire WPA employed less than 25% of unemployed workers during the period. Some even argue it made the problem worse.

 

I'm not for the government letting people get so desperate they fall into crime, when there are cheaper and more effective ways to deal with the issue. If we see automation unemployment on the horizon, and we do, and do nothing to plan for dealing with it, we're making a choice to pay much higher bills for law enforcement and jails&#8230; in a country that already jails more people than any other country on earth in actual numbers and percentages. How on earth would a laissez faire attitude about a known problem meet the standards of promoting the general welfare of this country?

You, personally, don't have to do one thing. Elected representatives should be looking to the future and planning for it because that is their charge&#8230; to provide the means of the country functioning under the Constitution. Politicians will answer that call because it is more pragmatic and efficient to deal with things from the front end than as a response after the damage is done.

 

Universal basic income. Let's get it done.

 

As automation becomes more and more prevalent, jobs will switch from human labor to machine control/maintenance/programming. I have seen this happen over the past decades as NC manufacturing machines (for instance) have taken the place of human fabrication. Instead of losing jobs to these machines, the higher efficiency of these machines has resulted in a higher output of product which has also caused companies to install more and more of these machines resulting in an expanded human labor force to program, maintain and run them.

You see, in the past, 100% human fabrication of products took significantly longer so, there was less demand for those products. NC manufacturing techniques vastly improved throughput and output which, BTW also increased the need for more raw materials and more quality control.

Government will only truncate the number of jobs available.

 

Don't get hung up on an example I used as how the government has functioned in the past during a period of high unemployment. The point is that the government will step in and do something when massive amounts of people are unemployed. There is precedent.

 

What is that?