Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky • Hacker News Board

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#141

Post by tmptmp » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:23 AM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #130

karmacondon wrote: post #111

I think the fundamental purpose of a business is to accomplish a task, not to employ people. For example, I don't care how many people are employed to keep hackernews running. I'm thankful for their efforts, but I don't care if it's one person, ten people, or one bot. Or how much any of them get paid. The only thing that consumers and businesses care about is the end result. If a job can be done by a machine, that's…

Business is a social construct and we can un-construct it if it proves no longer to be the socially valuable way to do things. It's there to serve humans. if it doesn't do that, it's a parasite, drag it out behind the shed and shoot it.

The Marxists and communists have tried doing that thing many times and have failed spectacularly. Business based market economy is the only (till now) successful and socially most beneficial type of society that has ever existed. I upvoted the OP because he/she/it (it may be a bot) has put this thing in clear words.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#142

Post by gozur88 » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:24 AM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #31

Retra wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "good argument" for having a minimum wage is that without it, wages will be pressured down , because every business on the planet wants wages as low as possible, and they generally have the means to achieve this. It has nothing to do with job creation: it's about having jobs that are not basically slavery. It's for job quality, not quantity. Besides, you're just assuming people should be employed at "fair market…

True, every business on the planet wants wages as low as possible. This is, of course, correct. On the other hand, every employee on the planet wants her wage to be as high as possible. This is also obviously true. This creates law of supply and demand. Google can't hire a decent software engineer for, say, $30000/year, because other companies will immediately offer more, and supply of talented software engineers is…

>I don't know, they don't teach this stuff anymore in high school / colleges, or what?

Sadly, they really don't. Every few generations we have a fling with collectivism and then think "Oh, so that's why we didn't do this."

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#143

Post by Zigurd » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:26 AM UTC

mbfg wrote: post #56

I'm all for raising the minimum wage, temporarily it may help people for several years. The truth is the automation wave is coming quickly regardless of what people are paid. And it's not for just minimum wage jobs. Think about jobs like truck driver where there's probably several million people who count this as their profession in the US. In 10-20 years, that number will probably approach 0. There's a nasty new wor…

We are already a good ways toward the outcome you describe, having gutted manufacturing employment. The reason we are so heavily policed and imprisoned is that those are good jobs for people with stronger necks than minds. Those people used to work in factories.

Here's the twist: The self-organizing nature of free market capitalism has been fetishized without justification. Yeah it's more efficient than a Soviet Five Year Plan. But that's not saying much. What if command economies run my machine intelligence turn out to be the most productive and best able to deliver a good life for the most people?

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#144

Post by JulianMorrison » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:28 AM UTC

tmptmp wrote: post #141

JulianMorrison wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business is a social construct and we can un-construct it if it proves no longer to be the socially valuable way to do things. It's there to serve humans. if it doesn't do that, it's a parasite, drag it out behind the shed and shoot it.

The Marxists and communists have tried doing that thing many times and have failed spectacularly. Business based market economy is the only (till now) successful and socially most beneficial type of society that has ever existed. I upvoted the OP because he/she/it (it may be a bot) has put this thing in clear words.

Up until now, the possibility of having a group of people who lead a leisure life without an undercaste of slaves hasn't existed. Automation is a new thing under the sun.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#145

Post by chii » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:28 AM UTC

drodgers wrote: post #117

x5n1 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full employment is one of the fundamental macroeconomic objectives. So yes as governments you do expect exactly that. You also expect to reduce disparity between the rich and poor. Why? Because you don't want people to revolt and create chaos. If unemployment goes up too much and there are no jobs, people will revolt and violence will occur... in which people will probably destroy your peaceful stable life... your fa…

The government could achieve full-employment by drafting everyone or paying them to dig ditches then fill them in again, but that would be really wasteful. If there's actually nothing useful for some people to do (they can't find a job that supports them) then we should stop thinking of employment as a requirement for survival. If the economy can't find full-time roles for some people, then we as a society — though t…

> If there's actually nothing useful for some people to do

then those people who cannot be useful will not survive - it's as simple as that. It takes resources to keep someone alive, and that resource must come from somewhere.

I'd live for basic income to be viable, but i highly doubt it's viable, given that it amounts to altruism (from those people who own the means of production/automation). We'd have to have free or near-free energy.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#146

Post by zanny » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:35 AM UTC

zeta0134 wrote: post #115

Chinjut wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution I'd like to see: Enact basic income AND change the fact that our culture views work ethic (narrowly defined in terms of market income) ~= value.

I don't think work ethic = value is ever going to go away to be honest. People will always value hard workers, and rightly so, because hard workers get things done and problem solved. However, I don't necessarily think that work ethic needs to equal basic income. That homelessness is even a thing is a symptom of this world view; we are in a society that is more than capable of dealing with some problems in the most p…

Rather than eliminate work = value, introduce no value = don't work. The problem is not going to be laziness on the unemployed, it is going to be unemployability. We are going to point at gross overhead in business and every sector of the economy in how we have grown tumorous bureaucracy on everything that saps human labor without producing marginally useful value. Just consider the advertising industry - billions of dollars to just change who people give their money to through psychological manipulation. Absolutely zero value ad to the whole economy, it only gives value to the company who can persuade people to buy from them by taking value from whomever that sale was taken from.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#147

Post by zanny » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:37 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #109

marcosdumay wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you are essentially repeating the "wealth inequality does not exist" mantra. But it does not matter how many times people repeat, it does not become real. Inequality exists. Those people fired will be out of places to go. Yes, overall people will become richer, those people are an exception.

> Yes, overall people will become richer That's not a given either. The working masses are many many times more than the business owners in count. So, while a few business owners can get cheaper with being able to fire part of their employees, those employees will be a bigger number that the business owners who benefited. As for customers, they'll hardly see any difference (except negative, if they're also part, or t…

It is median vs mean wealth. Median wealth has been, and will probably continue to, either stagnate or decline while mean wealth keeps going up.

Our economies are still growing. Those fruits are just going to the owners of capital rather than the workers.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#148

Post by chii » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:41 AM UTC

spdy wrote: post #100

mbfg wrote: post #56

I'm all for raising the minimum wage, temporarily it may help people for several years. The truth is the automation wave is coming quickly regardless of what people are paid. And it's not for just minimum wage jobs. Think about jobs like truck driver where there's probably several million people who count this as their profession in the US. In 10-20 years, that number will probably approach 0. There's a nasty new wor…

> There's a nasty new world order coming where a vast majority of jobs will be gone. There will be super wealthy 'robot owners' and peasant/slaves This will maybe be the case in the beginning but if you have to deal with an unemployment rate of 20-40% inside a country under heavy arms as America you have to find solutions quickly as modern society tend to fix problems when they occur we will have a bumpy ride into ou…

>we can provide the basic needs to everyone food / electricity / water / housing at no cost.

what evidence do you have of this? those resources are not free (unless you consider fusion a solved problem, and thus have near-free energy).

More likely scenario is that the vast majority of people who are too uneducated, or is not from a wealthy background will suffer, whilst those with the means will live way above (literally, in huge skyscrapers/floating cities, as well as figuratively). There will still be slums, and the conditions of those places will be as you imagine.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#149

Post by zanny » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:44 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #108

mbfg wrote: post #56

I'm all for raising the minimum wage, temporarily it may help people for several years. The truth is the automation wave is coming quickly regardless of what people are paid. And it's not for just minimum wage jobs. Think about jobs like truck driver where there's probably several million people who count this as their profession in the US. In 10-20 years, that number will probably approach 0. There's a nasty new wor…

> Even if you have a job that is 'automation-proof' or 'automation-resistent' but not an elite, your income will be paltry compared to the super rich class, and thus you will be relegated to the masses. If my real income goes from $100,000 to $200,000 and the CEO's from $10 million to $100 million, am I worse off than before? Should I be averse to that future? I don't see why...

> I don't see why...

If you exist in an economy solely consisting of yourself and your employer, you went from receiving 1% if revenue to .2%. Your earnings are never absolute in terms of buying power or wealth - they are both relative, because the market behaves relatively to what people have or do not have. If your CEO gets 5 times richer than you, they now exert 5 times more economic influence on the economy and you in reciprocal exert 5 times less. R&D will cater less to you, industry will target you less, and most importantly your real spending power will go down.

How? Because your economy just went from 10.1 million to 100.2 million. That is a 10 times inflation of the monetary base, which in aggregate would see a correspondingly (smaller) influence on the price of goods and services. Your buying power will drop.

That extends to whole economies. If you are a part of a contiguous segment of the economy whose total wealth or revenue is declining, your influence, buying power, and real prosperity is also declining, regardless of absolute income.

It is also worth mentioning that wealth is a much greater influence on prosperity than income. He who owns the means of production is he who reaps the spoils of growth first, and can decide what to do with them. That is trickle down in a nutshell, but it is at complete discretion of the capitalist running the show how the money they get is then spent, and nowadays it is definitely not going to be on you.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#150

Post by vlasev » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 1:45 AM UTC

drodgers wrote: post #129

mangeletti wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hereby give you an honorary 1000 karma. Reading this article disgusted me. I'm not a "republican" or "democrat", or anything else for that matter, but I have some intelligence and sense. Arguing that raising minimum wage will some how lead to more prosperity is the same thing as stating "people with minimum wage jobs currently have prosperity". The minimum is the minimum, no matter how high we raise it. The only th…

Hi, Australian here. Our nominal prices (in AUD) are about the same as in the US (in USD) and our minimum wage is $17.29 an hour (+ 25% for casual employees). People who make minimum wage here aren't struggling to survive like they are in the US; the minimum wage is actually liveable. Prices don't just rise when the minimum wage does. Firstly, people who make minimum wage make up a small proportion of overall income…

1%? Really?