Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
fastcoexist.com
Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
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Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#2The article is a chain of economic fallacies.
> Modern economies are increasingly based around information. Information "wants to be free"—as the saying goes—but free things are bad for capitalism, because capitalism is about competition and making profits.
Tons of companies are based on providing information. Even if the information is public, sorting it and providing it efficiently has real value (such as google). Others do their own private research and re-sell it. Capitalists use and contribute to open source software. This statement is absurd.
> In time, technology is likely to drive many things to "zero marginal cost." Energy, for example, won't be subject to market forces. We'll just have a solar panel on the roof and each kilowatt hour will essentially be free.
In this "energy is free" economy, who will be building and providing me with my free solar panels, and then installing and maintaining the electrical system in my home or business? What happens when it's cloudy?
This whole article is like a undergraduate philosophy student who thinks he or she has the silver bullet for humanity, if only people would listen!
Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#3In terms of GDP per capita, I live in one of the lowest income counties in a state that is well below the national average. I'm not sure if many of the points made in this article would be felt so viscerally by someone living in SF making $100k+/yr, but I found it very interesting.
It's worth noting that I have received exactly $0.00 in government subsidization (student loans, disability, unemployment, etc) - I've never applied for or received a penny of it. Perhaps the most interesting thing about rural communities like mine is that the people here who actually make money - farmers - are among the largest recipients of government subsidization in human history due to a subsidy program which was conceived when industrialized agriculture was still a nascent technology.
I feel there is a sort of cognitive dissonance when it comes to things like this in that many successful people are where they are in large part due to the governmental aid they've received,but these same people tend to be the most intense detractors of any legislation that would help everyone else.
I don't have any good answers and I sensed a bit of naivety in the article, but I feel it made some good points and asked a lot of very important questions.
Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#4If all human jobs are eliminated, that means you never have to hire a human to get something accomplished.
"But what about those who can't afford the super expensive robots?" you say?
If they are too expensive, you'll just have to trade with your fellow humans who also can't afford them, just like you do now. Millions of people all over the world do jobs that are already automated. The Amish even do it right here in the US, if you need a blatant example.
Of course, robots will become cheap just like every technology eventually gets cheap. They are only expensive in fantasies where only one variable is allowed to change and all logical consequences are ignored.
The reality is that building houses and growing food and transportation and medical care and many other things are all going to get much cheaper.
And so will writing code, prototyping new inventions, market assessment, manufacturing and distribution. Anybody that wants to dream up new apps or physical inventions all day will be able to sell to a global market. A global market of bots who filter the millions of new things for the exact needs and desires of their human masters.
Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#5The article is a chain of economic fallacies. > Modern economies are increasingly based around information. Information "wants to be free"—as the saying goes—but free things are bad for capitalism, because capitalism is about competition and making profits. Tons of companies are based on providing information. Even if the information is public, sorting it and providing it efficiently has real value (such as google).…
It's also using the word free in two different senses. Basically in the phrase "wants to be free" that's "free as in freedom, not as in beer." The meaning is that it's difficult to restrict the flow of information and you cannot reverse it. But then the author is claiming that information is free as in it doesn't cost anything. Then he's using the word information in two different ways, confusing "information economy" with data and then invoking some sort of magical osmosis by which an information economy doesn't involve money. Unpacking the chain of reasoning involved just in that single sentence, I see the following assumptions and arguments:
we have an "information economy"
information wants to be free
it doesn't cost anything to produce information
an information economy is one that doesn't cost any money to run
money is important to capitalism
without money capitalism doesn't work
since our economy doesn't require money to run, capitalism isn't working
Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#6This article is terrible. Not only is it full of false comparisons, but every example cited as a supposed failure of capitalism or free markets is actually the direct result of government intervention. A friend challenged me when I mentioned this, so I wrote a full take-down: https://gist.github.com/nateabele/cffa0c54ab0385bbba37
Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#7In terms of GDP per capita, I live in one of the lowest income counties in a state that is well below the national average. I'm not sure if many of the points made in this article would be felt so viscerally by someone living in SF making $100k+/yr, but I found it very interesting. It's worth noting that I have received exactly $0.00 in government subsidization (student loans, disability, unemployment, etc) - I've ne…
You got $0 in government subsidisation? You don't use public roads? The police don't service you? You didn't get a free public education?
Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#8In terms of GDP per capita, I live in one of the lowest income counties in a state that is well below the national average. I'm not sure if many of the points made in this article would be felt so viscerally by someone living in SF making $100k+/yr, but I found it very interesting. It's worth noting that I have received exactly $0.00 in government subsidization (student loans, disability, unemployment, etc) - I've ne…
You got $0 in government subsidisation? You don't use public roads? The police don't service you? You didn't get a free public education?
I meant direct cash-in-your-pocket subsidies like the ones I mentioned, including food stamps. I get what you're saying, the point of that post wasn't woe is me... but the quality of roads, policing, and public education also tends to not be so high in lower income areas.
I'm not pretending to have all the answers, but I think we could do much better as a society.
Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#9Sounds like it really wants to differentiate itself from the "old kind of socialism", which has a heritage of thought which already contains a lot of the things mentioned here.
And, as with most socialist thought, tends to kick up a lot of cries and moans from the self-professed economists in the room.
Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy
#10In terms of GDP per capita, I live in one of the lowest income counties in a state that is well below the national average. I'm not sure if many of the points made in this article would be felt so viscerally by someone living in SF making $100k+/yr, but I found it very interesting. It's worth noting that I have received exactly $0.00 in government subsidization (student loans, disability, unemployment, etc) - I've ne…
You got $0 in government subsidisation? You don't use public roads? The police don't service you? You didn't get a free public education?
Do we have to hash this out in every HN thread that touches on economics? These arguments are very weak.
Plenty of people don't believe in police. Plenty of people homeschool and / or don't like what government schools have done.
The "who will build the roads" trope is so tired that - and I'm not kidding here - one of the ice cream vendors at the Porcupine Festival has a best-selling flavor, "Who will build the rocky roads?"