It was a small town, 43 years ago. I was 11. Everyone knew what was happening. As soon as they switched to union labor, the thefts and vandalism stopped.
If it doesn't fit the playbook it didn't happen. And if the union thugs were on the side of goodness the ends justify the means, that's the justification for otherwise deplorable conduct.
Yes, it does. I believe we merely need a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage and fourteen dollars an hour for unemployment compensation, and let capitalism do the rest to solve for automation.
N has it exactly right. The standard of living increases that occur on a annual basis are the result of productivity increases. Technology allows people to produce more with less labor hours. A rock truck driver is much more productive than a person pushing a wheelbarrow - the rock truck is an automated high capacity wheelbarrow. - - - Updated - - - It's obvious just who does not understand economics.
The cost of production is made up of both labor and equipment costs including depreciation. As the worker becomes more productive due to technology the portion of his labor costs with respect to total production costs is reduced. That's all that chart is showing.
This is a conclusion without a foundation and as much as someone might be inclined to agree with it lacking any foundation it's merely an unsupported opinion.
This statement is based upon the economic philosophy of ownership established by "Title" as developed under the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and is not based upon the "natural right of property" where only human labor establishes the right to consume and use that which is produced. Philosophically, based upon the natural right of property, only the laborer has a property right to whatever is produced and not the owner of the enterprise that expends no labor in the production. Now if the owner is also one of the laborers then they're entitled to a proportionate share of the wealth produced but even that has it's limitations. But we must also understand that "commerce" where profits are secured is not a natural right of the person because it's not inherent in the person. It's a statutory privilege granted under the law because it involves more than one person. The statutory laws must ensure that the wealth is property distributed between the laborer and the owner. Once again we see the conflict of the economic philosophies between John Locke based upon the Natural Right of Property and Adam Smith's economic philosophy that was based upon Title established under the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings that violates the natural right of property.
That is only true if the laws of property and commerce are based upon the Natural Right of Property where increased productivity benefits all of those in society but our laws of property and commerce are not based upon the Natural Right of Property and instead are based upon laws of "Title" that predated the definition of the natural rights. Under laws based upon the Natural Right of Property the increased productivity is shared by all of society so we would only have "winners" based upon the improved technology that increases productivity resulting in a higher standard of living for everyone. Under laws based upon Title only the person holding Title to the technology benefits and it actually reduces the share of the increased wealth being produced to others in society resulting in "winners and losers" where the standard of living is disproportionately increased to those holding Title while it's disproportionately reduced for those not holding Title to the technology. Once again we can see this reflected by the US economy. We produce about $16 trillion worth of wealth per year which is about four-times more than is required for every household in America to have a descent standard of living but over 40% are living hand-to-mouth or can't even afford to do that because they don't receive a proportionate share of the overwhelming wealth being produced that is four-times more than what's actually required for a descent living for everyone. Using the example the person that pushes the wheelbarrow used to make a good living but with the introduction of the truck the owner of the truck increases their standard of living while the person still pushing the wheelbarrow is pushed into poverty because they can't earn enough to live on anymore. Remember that the truck didn't eliminate the job of pushing a wheel barrow because that's still necessary but it did reduce the relative compensation per ton of materials moved by the wheel barrow.
The statement is always true. The process of creative destruction reduces the need for wheel barrow pushers who now move into other jobs or train to drive a rock truck. This is how the standard of living steadily increases over time.
The person still pushing the wheelbarrow is left behind. Let me provide an example. Recently I had four cubic yards (2,916 cu ft) of gravel moved to my house and spread as landscaping material. The gravel had to be moved about 1 mile to my house by truck and then was spread using a wheelbarrow. If this had all been done by wheelbarrow then using a 4 cubic foot wheelbarrow, making one round trip per hour, it would have taken 729 man-hours to accomplish. If we assumed $10/hr then the cost of labor would have been $7,290. But the truck moved it most of the way before dumping it and I was only charged $100 for the delivery (not including the price of the gravel) but then it cost me another $160 to have two men with wheelbarrows at $10/hr to move the gravel from the pile and spread it around the yard. The thing is that the actual value of moving the gravel didn't change but the price did. Instead of the cost being $7,290 it was only $260 because of the technology of using the truck. The problem is that the men that had to still move the gravel in the wheelbarrow didn't benefit at all from the improved technology because they were paid $10/hr regardless of the fact that four cubic yards of gravel were moved more efficiently by truck than by hand with a wheel barrow. Their compensation could have easily been doubled for doing the same work that was improved by the technology and I would have still realized a cost reduction by over $6,500 because of the introduction of the technology. The technology improved but the wheelbarrow pusher didn't improve their lifestyle based upon the use of the truck to reduce the physical labor because their compensation wasn't increased based upon the saving of labor. BTW the owner of the truck probably paid the driver about $40 and pocketed the rest of the profits because they owned the truck and they didn't expend any labor related to moving the gravel at all. They made $60 because they owned "Title" to the truck.
That's ridiculous. Those former wheel barrow pushers adapted via training or relocation to other jobs made possible from the economic growth from the increased productivity provided by technology. It has nothing to do with the ownership of land or trucks except for the fact that someone had the foresight to invest in those capital producing entities using the wealth created by their individual work place efforts. What happened to all those wheel barrow pushers displaced by rock trucks ?? What happened to all those involved in farming (~95% of the US population ~ 300 years ago) ??
Of course two persons with wheel barrows could have been hired to make the 2 mile round trip on foot to pick up the gravel and pay them $10 an hour to do the job. Would it be likely 2 persons could be found who would be willing to make the trip to pick up the gravel even if they would be assured employment for 45 or more days? Suppose the trip was 10 miles each way?
Automation is not a bad thing,...and it isn't the real core of the problem. In fact, automation in itself is a good thing, and we should actually encourage it. The real issue here is that our societal structure is not currently set up to adequately deal with those who are displaced by automation. This is one clear side-effect which needs to be addressed. (preferably sooner, rather than latter) -Meta
But the project would have taken years to complete. And the opportunity costs would have been "huge." Unless the objective was to hire people and provide them jobs (a jobs program) as socialist countries sometimes do. I'm reminded of Milton Friedman who asked why people with shovels were not provided teaspoons instead if the objective was to provide jobs.
It's not society, but people, individuals who are living much longer and in addition have to adapt to a more rapidly changing world today.
the wheelbarrow pusher who just lost their livelihood for putting food on the table to the truck driver must be given the opportunity to create a new problem for robots to solve, they cannot just be left behind. moving gravel is a human problem, technology needs human capital to survive. if some of the profits were now shared to the newly unemployed or homeless wheelbarrow pusher, this person could have a problem that would require the development of new technology to solve, which would have a net multiplier effect on the economy.
In our society unemployed persons receive unemployment benefits paid for by taxpayers. This is to smooth the transition from the creative destruction process. An economy growing at ~4% is the best way to smooth the transition and one of the ways in which to achieve the 4% solution is to reform the education system to one of school choice (voucher system) for every K - 12 student and to reduce the cost of higher education whose cost has grown far in excess of the inflation rate (It is not to provide low interest rate loans to students so they can pay these exorbitant tuition fees). Why is that ?? There is no multiplier effect here.
And would that job opportunity have occurred if it would have costed $7,290? Population exceeds the need for labour. Labour along with automation and technology is capable of producing nearly anything in excess of the demand. There is a cost to everything which is produced. A growing number of the population is finding it more difficult to compete in the labour market and acquire the means by which their needs and wants are satisfied. Growing inflation and debt is not a solution, but a 'kick the can down the road' reaction to the problem which only makes any solution to the problem much more difficult and/or perhaps even much more violent in the future.
The reason that people cannot compete is because the economy is not growing due to the economic policies of the Obama administration and a lack of training and education in the disciplines where there are shortages. The shift from manufacturing labor to services is a natural consequence of technology advances. This is true now and always has been true. This means that we require fewer people to produce what we need which frees up labor to provide services which add to the increase in the standard of living. There is no "law" that says that population must exceed the need for labor at some point.
We don't currently have a problem with a lack of jobs. We're currently below a 5% unemployment rate which is typically considered "full employment" because about 5% of the workforce is transitionally unemployed (i.e. between jobs). There's lots of jobs so a lack of jobs isn't the problem. The problem is that most of those jobs don't pay enough in compensation for the person/household to live on.
Compare the current U6 (9.6) and LFPR (62.7) to historical values and tell us again that we don't have an employment problem in the Obama economy.
in your previous example of humans needing fighter jets for war, someone who was highly paid had to develop the technology for the robots to create those complex weapons of mass destruction. these people who lost their wheelbarrow jobs could be paid to think of new problems which would create high paid jobs for robots to solve. that is because robots can't think, so the wheelbarrow pushers can be paid to be retrained as thinkers who can be paid more money too, and be a win win situation for everyone.
Unemployment benefits are funding by taxes on employers in the states where I've lived and they're limited to six-months. Additionally as a person ages they're less able to "start over again" in a new profession because they're working life-span is only about 45 years. Unemployment benefits only allow a very short time period for a person to find new employment in the same profession for all intent and purpose and if the job has been replaced by automation it creates unemployment were more people are seeking work while the number of jobs has decreased. This actually has the effect of lowering the compensation for the remaining jobs in that profession.
I experienced the transition from hand-designed to computer-aided-design and into the early days of "computer-designed" military aircraft and the necessary number of mechanical engineers today is effectively only about 10% of what it was in 1970 because the computers do almost all of the work previously done by the mechanical engineer. First the mechanical engineers were replace by computer "drafters" and today the computers are replacing the "drafters" because the computer is capable of doing that work. So effectively 90% of the highly paid jobs of mechanical engineer were eliminated, replaced by lower paid drafters, and now the drafters are being replaced. Soon all that will be left are the janitor jobs and even those will be eliminated and replaced by robotic janitors.
