The difference is that I have not given up as you apparently have. Creative destruction has been going on for thousands of years. Labor forces have to adapt and the way to accomplish that adaptation is through education and training. This has also been going on for thousands of years. All of the developing countries in the world clearly know this and are acting on this axiom. The success of the US economy both domestically and internationally had always been dependent on having a well educated and trained workforce. We in the US are having trouble learning from our own history.
It's not that I've given up, I just don't have a solution, and based on this thread, most don't even think their is a problem. If you do think of something that's workable, be sure and post it.
It's not that I've given up, it's just that you offer nothing that hasn't been offered before and failed. Education reform? Gee, what a new idea.
An idea which has not been acted on to the degree necessary. But OK, what are your solutions for the loss of unskilled human jobs to technology ?? How do humans in general increase their human capital ??
I've already said, I don't have a solution to this. But that doesn't mean that I don't recognize the problem.
As the Industrial Revolution gathered steam, an increasing number of people became alarmed that the efficiency of the new technologies would displace the workforce. This turned out not to be the case. The transformation of the new technologies created not only new jobs but whole new industries. This happy experience has caused some conservatives to assert that productivity technology always creates a net gain in new and better jobs. This assumption turns out to have been wrong. The new technologies of the Information Revolution do not always or even often create more jobs than they destroy. Unlike the Industrial Revolution where the jobs lost were largely unskilled or semi-skilled, the Information Revolution is displacing semi-skilled and skilled workers as well. The economics of the situation is clear beyond dispute. Across a wide spectrum of the economy there are available machines which produce more output for far less price than wage workers. This is no longer just a challenge for accountants and assembly workers, Lawyers are being replaced by computers as well as warehouse workers. The Information Revolution is just beginning. Wealth production has always come from a mix of capital and labor. Capital's share of the pie, represented by investment in technology is getting larger and larger while the need for labor is shrinking from the low-skill bottom up. Our tax system is tilted in favor of capitalism. Capital gains is taxed at half the rate of earned income. This is accelerating the new pattern of wealth distribution. We are going to have to radically change the source of government tax revenue and carefully expand the human services on which government tax revenue is spent. To our so-called conservatives, this is exactly the wrong thing to do. The want to go on a precisely opposite course which they call Reaganomics. How long it will it be before voters realize that this approach not only isn't going to work, it has already failed? I don't know. It may require a very large bump indeed.
There was a time when food production always came from hunters and gathers. We don't need hunters anymore and we increasing use robots to gather. We adapted. Zero-labor business models are moving to become the norm. We'll adapt to that too. You want pie? Bake your own. Find a problem and solve it. And if you need labor as part of your solution use automation, self assembly, customer contribution, expert systems, crowd sourcing ... just don't stand mindlessly on the corner and expect someone to need and value your labor for their solution. That times has passed. There are infinite jobs out there. As long as people have problems and needs, jobs exist. Pick one.
The world economies are all moving to free market capitalism. This process started in the 80's with Reagan and Thatcher. Coming out of WWII the apparent success of the Soviet Union and the apparent successful economic management of the economies in the Allied countries swung the pendulum to central planning and socialism. These forms of economic management all failed and the world has moved to capitalism which has been responsible for bringing more people out of poverty than any other economic system. Even communistic countries (China & Vietnam) have free market economies. Your description of the trajectory of economic history is 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Read "Commanding Heights" for a lengthy but detailed and interesting economic history of this process in many countries around the world including the Asian Tigers, South America, Europe, North America, as well as Australia & New Zealand.
Well, as you've been saying, the first step is just convincing people that a lack of jobs due to automation is a serious potential issue worthy of addressing. Beyond that, I believe the steps for actually solving/preventing the issue would be as follows. Ideally we'd implement these changes gradually as more gets automated, ...and not wait until that point at which there were no more jobs and then panic and try to implement them all at once. 1. As more jobs are automated, the government should see to the basic needs of the displaced as well as to those of anyone else finding themselves lacking the basics, by employing some of those newly unemployed folks to build and or provide things such as more affordable housing, more affordable healthcare, more affordable food, improved infrastructure, more affordable and improved transportation, education, training, etc. etc. The cost for these efforts should be offset in part by charging a fee for individual-based goods and services (just as the private sector does) and remaining costs should be covered by taxing those at the very top (the resource owners) who benefit the most from the automation (along with natural resources) that displaced the workers in the first place. A WPA 2.0-style program would be ideal for this. This step will have several positive effects. It will provide a portion of the displaced with new jobs and incomes, this in turn will keep the surplus labor down raising the average wage of those still working in the private sector, and lastly, the increased supply of affordable goods and services will lead to an overall drop in prices. With education and training also being a part of it, the overall skill and knowledge of the workforce will improve, making it easier to fill them into those harder to fill high skill jobs. Though that said, at least initially, doing things such as building buildings and roads etc. will still utilize a lot of lower skill labor as well. And with more folks having more money to spend, demand for higher-order goods and services will increase, further driving industry. 2. Once prices and wages have leveled such that most everyone's basic needs are being met, the standard workweek should be reduced where possible, spreading out the existing work across an increased number of people, and freeing up time for those already employed. Employees should also be afforded more paid vacation, more medical/paternity leave time, etc. etc. 3. As people come to have more time on their hands, the government should shift from hiring folks to provide necessities, to hiring folks to provide for recreational needs, as well as art and music commissions etc.; creating, operating, and maintaining more parks and community centers, tennis courts, swimming pools, equipment, sports organizations, etc. etc. 4. Finally, after everything is fully automated, the government simply needs to ensure that the perpetual benefits yielded from the marriage of automation with natural resources continues to reach everyone via steps 1-3 as needed, even if this means simply hiring folks to build more machines for individuals who are without, and giving them access to the needed natural resources, up to the point that everyone becomes effectively self-sufficient. In such a scenario, work itself might become a luxury of recreational nature. It might even be the case that some begin to pay others for the opportunity to work, not because they needed to, or as an intermediate step to get something they wanted, but because work itself was what they wanted. This, in my opinion, is where we want to reach. -Meta
The obvious and clear problem with that is that one cannot bake a pie if one hasn't the access to the needed ingredients,..no matter how hard they try. -Meta
The good thing about all this is that we in America don't need to go so far as full on Communism to solve the issues that would be brought about by jobs being replaced by automation. No, instead, we can keep our capitalist free-market system, and simply add in just enough social programs and standards to keep it running smoothly. It may be a surprise to some, but it is no surprise to me that the best system is indeed the one which avoids the absolutes of either end of the economic spectrum. -Meta
You provide a good recipe and a reliable cook, others will offer ingredients for a share of your pie.
Lol, you seem so confident that that'll always be the case,... but when someone makes an automated pie baking machine, complete with the greatest gourmet pie recipes in all of human history, cooks wont be needed by those with the ingredients. And God help us once someone makes one that can even create new recipes ,...we'll all be screwed... Well,....those of us without our own access to pie ingredients will be anyway. Because relying on someone who needs/values your pie baking labor will no longer be feasible. ...heck!, you even said so yourself! -Meta
No, not make work. Providing for the needs, wants, and training/education requirements of citizens not fully covered by the private sector. In addition to shortening the amount of time each individual works, by spreading the workload across more people where possible. When I hear the term make-work, to me that signifies things like digging ditches and filling them back up again,... work that doesn't really benefit anyone. But I am not suggesting the government hire folks to do things that yield no benefit for anyone. Instead, I want those workers to at least lay down some new Ethernet cable in that ditch before filling it back up. Make-work especially should not be used now when there is so much real-work to do. And there will be real-work out there so long as there are people who's basic needs aren't being met. And again, once folks needs are being met, my proposal is that the amount of work done by individuals should be decreased, not increased. So no building bridges out into the ocean or anything like that....(not unless there's a city out there) -Meta
That would certainly be ideal wouldn't it.....but why exactly would those with the ingredients and pie machines share their pie with anyone else? What exactly would cause them to do this, or how would those without ingredients convince them to share their pie?? -Meta
This doesn't sound like anything that hasn't already been tried before, but maybe I'm missing something.
So you just want to put everyone who's jobs get eliminated on food stamps?....That's your solution?...
A WPA was indeed tried in the past,...and it also worked in the past. It, along with WWII spending brought us out of the Great Depression. The problem was that we stopped the program once it wasn't needed, and haven't yet bothered to bring it back despite the issues that lead to its creation in the first place re-emerging. As far as drastically decreasing/spreading the workload, I don't really think that's been tried to any significant effect yet, though on the other hand, its not really something I think should be tired, until after everyone's basic needs are already being met. -Meta
I suggest they find another way to contribute. But if someone cannot provide any value to society... yes, I'd rather see charity than starvation.
