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

#191

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:29 AM UTC

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #184

JulianMorrison wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity, a sufficient majority thereof, simply stops playing the game. Money was a concept. It is now ignored. Corporations were a concept. They are no longer believed in. Ownership is a bouncing cheque with nobody caring to cash it. Most people stop playing "private business". You owned a railway? It's been automated. You owned a steel foundry? It's been automated. It answers to the world direct democracy, not to y…

What you're saying doesn't make sense. Again, your position ignores scarcity and act as if economics is something like a "big bad boogey man" cooked up or something weird like that. The steel foundry example is interesting. Does it have an infinite amount of raw materials? Is it utilizing a perpetual energy machine? To me this like if the professor asks the class "where does the electricity in your class come from?"…

"Where does ownership come from class?"

"The socket!"

Of course that is silly, but sweat of the brow gets a little hypothetical when you start talking about piling up billions of dollars (probably even less than that). Should we pay the people that are rich today a larger share of the benefits of automation out of nothing more than a commitment to tradition?

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

#192

Post by yummyfajitas » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:34 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 (they can't find a job that supports them) then we should stop thinking of employment as a requirement for survival.

They could fix our crumbling infrastructure, provide child care for working women, in-home care for our elderly, reduce overcrowding by making prisons larger, build community gardens, or a hundred other popular left wing causes.

The claim that we couldn't get productive labor by drafting the unemployed is also the claim that there is nothing else useful that the government could do even if the cost is $0. Do any basic income proponents really believe this?

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

#193

Post by apalmer » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:37 AM UTC

robryan wrote: post #170

chii wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What is the difference though between them being paid for unproductive work for the sake of having a job or being paid a basic income?

but that's the thing... they most likely wont be paid for unproductive work or given a basic income they will simply be let to starve as has ALWAYS been done historically.

This is the key point that always perplexes me in these discussions of automation, the belief that somehow a fully automated society is going to lead to large swaths of the population not doing work and somehow being given basic income and being left to chase 'loftier pursuits' instead of 'wage slavery'...

its not a logical expectation based on past human history...

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

#194

Post by Evolved » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:39 AM UTC

It seems like with regards to restaurants, this would only mostly apply to fast-food restaurants. Raising the minimum wage doesn't really appear to have an effect on servers given that the majority of their pay is from tips and they are effectively legally paid less than minimum wage anyway.

Furthermore, it isn't supposed to be a living wage. You're not supposed to be a single mother of 3 supporting yourself working at McDonald's. The minimum wage is supposed to be for those new to the work force and then you're supposed to better yourself and get a higher wage job. Where's the incentive to invest in yourself to earn more if you're making $15/hr for menial work?

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

#195

Post by apalmer » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:40 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #124

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…

> Full employment is one of the fundamental macroeconomic objectives Except for kids/students, and retired people. Nothing is preventing us from studying until we're 30 and retiring at 35 - if only the minority of the population can be productive enough (with the help of machines, obviously) to produce enough for the rest.

the thing that is preventing this from happening is starvation. In a capitalist society where 90% do not contribute to production or commerce and the labor is done and capital owned by the 10%... the 90% starves.

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

#196

Post by xkcd-sucks » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:46 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.

It's not there to serve itself, in the sense that an ant colony is there to serve itself?

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

#197

Post by EdSharkey » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:47 AM UTC

nomat wrote: post #180

clarkmoody wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's continue your thought: If minimum wage increases put upward pressure on wages generally, then what happens? Higher wage levels in general means more money in people's pockets, and this can turn into general price inflation (especially since business costs have risen due to the general level of wages going up). So let's assume you now have inflation. This means everything just got more expensive, so now that new…

Then it seems like the minimum wage is not the underlying issue. If there are too many people and not enough jobs, fiddling with the minimum wage won't have any real effect because regardless of what it is, there are always going to be people who are jobless (and therefore without income). So how do we reconcile the fact that currently, most people must work in order to live and yet there isn't enough work to go arou…

> how do we reconcile the fact that currently, most people must work in order to live and yet there isn't enough work to go around?

If you are a big powerful government, you have many tools to reconcile sweeping social problems like this.

Foreign wars and civil wars are effective at wiping out lots of people here and abroad. So are infectious diseases. You can also round up and intern undesirable people indefinitely as well or just kill them off.

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

#198

Post by rtpg » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:53 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.

Marxists and communists have tried this without also sticking to democracy... The well known failings could just as well be due to the massize amount of corruption that came from the strong bases of power.

We also had "real" market economies (no trust busting or the like) in the early 20th and it was shitty for a huge part of the population

History is the biggest argument against all economic systems

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

#199

Post by rtpg » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:56 AM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #163

Frondo wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite sure the "un-construction" he's talking about takes the lines of, say, revoking a business license. I have no idea why you imagined it would involve beating and robbing anyone.

> I have no idea why you imagined it would involve beating and robbing anyone. How do you think government would enforce that "revoking a business license" thing?

The same way the government goes about most things: asking , then telling, then forcing you to.

I mean governments also revoke driving licenses all the time, I don't think it always devolves to beatings

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

#200

Post by Spooky23 » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 3:58 AM UTC

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #174

JulianMorrison wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overly small scale perspective. Exaggerated scenario for clarity: your one starving human buying survival kibble from a fully automated megacorporation is better off with the kibble and without the pittance they spent on it, an infinitesimal amount of value was created. But humanity as a whole would be better off overthrowing the business system and directing the machines to make every human's life a paradise. System…

No, not at all. I think in all the comments here, there is an egregious error. The error is in totally ignoring the concept of economics or failing the recognize the reality of scarcity. It's not a "social construct"in any non-trivial sense. People throw that "social construct" thing around as if it is at all relevant. You could say the "law of identity" is a social construct and you don't accept ... Ok that's fine,…

That's absurdity. If economics were the end all, be all, we'd live in a planned economy dominated by a small cartel of businesses.

Society rejected that 100+ years ago. Recall that until recently, the folks concerning themselves with money were not at the top of the social heap -- with good reason.