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

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

#261

Post by xiaoma »

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.

Interestingly though, it's just now becoming possible to build a fully autonomous, distributed company on Etherium. In theory there's no way to tell if such an entity were controlled by humans or an AI.

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

#262

Post by CJefferson »

jrmurad wrote: post #160
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.

"un-construct it... drag it out behind the shed and shoot it." Can you "un-construct" this newspeak for us? It sounds like you're advocating that you or some other force besides free and voluntary trade should literally shut down private businesses, possibly beating and robbing their owners in the process (as has been done historically)? Because there's some formula for determining "social value" which has "number of…

Huge amounts of modern businesses aren't about "free and voluntary trade".

While I'm not saying we should, we could (for example) get rid of limited liability or the massively different tax arrangements for individuals and businesses (which usually greatly favour businesses over individuals). These are social constructs, and we could decide that they are no longer benefitting society.

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

#263

Post by marknutter »

zanny wrote: post #149
aianus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 y…

> 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.

So wait, you're saying the capitalist can choose to pay people zero dollars for their salaries or charge 100 times more for their goods and workers/consumers will automatically accept those terms? Because that's not really how it works.

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

#264

Post by jackcosgrove »

Retra wrote: post #14
Pyxl101 wrote: post #12

I've never heard a good argument to justify having a minimum wage. A lot of the people who argue for minimum wages commit the fallacy of the false dichotomy: they think that the choice is between everyone having jobs and getting paid what they're paid now, and everyone having jobs and getting paid more -- they think they can somehow legislate the latter outcome. In reality, what tends to happen when you increase mini…

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…

The way to stop downward wage pressure is for people to control how many offspring they have. I hear a lot of utopian talk here about leisure economies and basic incomes, but how about some utopian talk about a world where no child is ever born into a family without a plan for that child's future?

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

#265

Post by marknutter »

Retra wrote: post #14
Pyxl101 wrote: post #12

I've never heard a good argument to justify having a minimum wage. A lot of the people who argue for minimum wages commit the fallacy of the false dichotomy: they think that the choice is between everyone having jobs and getting paid what they're paid now, and everyone having jobs and getting paid more -- they think they can somehow legislate the latter outcome. In reality, what tends to happen when you increase mini…

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…

Then why do only 4% or so[1] of workers in the US make the minimum wage? Wouldn't, by your logic, far more employers pay people at minimum wage if their only goal was to pay people the lowest amount legally possible?

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-mi...

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

#266

Post by patrickaljord »

jakub_h wrote: post #241
patrickaljord wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't robbery as defined by the law like the death penalty isn't murder either legally. From a philosophical point of view though, opinions defer. Not saying I agree or not, just saying.

I'm still not comprehending how telling someone not to do something would amount to confiscation of property. State mandated confiscation of property would be comparable to robbery the way that legal death penalty would be comparable to murder, but no confiscation of property seems to be involved in simply telling people that some things are not allowed (I'm avoiding here, of course, the very issue of whether it's wi…

Laws are backed by the threat of violence. So yeah, you will have your freedom confiscated and probably the stuff you were selling too.

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

#267

Post by ptaipale »

vacri wrote: post #220
yummyfajitas wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They could fix our crumbling infrastructure... reduce overcrowding by making prisons larger Unskilled people make crappy engineers and construction workers. > provide child care These days, child care workers need a lot of paperwork and a bit of training. Not to mention that you kind've have to be good with kids; it's not really a job just anyone can do. > in-home care for our elderly And this is in the same bucket…

> build community gardens

This one could work... but then again, how many gardens can you have

When I hear this, I immediately think of Great Cultural Revolution in China, and Pol Pot in Cambodia. Also there the joys of gardening and agricultural work were supposed to cleanse the bourgeois people.

And while we are there, let's shoot anyone with eyeglasses for trying to be too intellectual.

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

#268

Post by hjhgjtyhdf »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #144
tmptmp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's funny because the "slaves" in America right now enjoy a higher standard of living than virtually every king and queen before our generation.

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

#269

Post by jakub_h »

patrickaljord wrote: post #266
jakub_h wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not comprehending how telling someone not to do something would amount to confiscation of property. State mandated confiscation of property would be comparable to robbery the way that legal death penalty would be comparable to murder, but no confiscation of property seems to be involved in simply telling people that some things are not allowed (I'm avoiding here, of course, the very issue of whether it's wi…

Laws are backed by the threat of violence. So yeah, you will have your freedom confiscated and probably the stuff you were selling too.

I don't know where you live but around here, property of people in prison still remains their property.

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

#270

Post by patrickaljord »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #227
jrmurad wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not taking into account that this "Issuer" claims some right to decide (by force, obviously) who can do business in the first place. So if some entrepreneurial lady begins, say, arranging flowers or braiding hair... maybe she gets forced out of business for not having a license. Or maybe she does get a license but it is revoked for some arbitrary reason like the Issuer decides she's a "parasite" because she do…

So wait, what if some nice lady decides to set herself up as an issuer of professional licenses. Do you want her put out of a job. Are you calling her a parasite? Are you going to beat her up if she doesn't meekly do what you tell her to do, which is clearly against her own self-interest? Why must all anarchist libertarianism devolve so quickly into bloody, revolutionary violence against individuals! Won't someone th…

> So wait, what if some nice lady decides to set herself up as an issuer of professional licenses. Do you want her put out of a job. Are you calling her a parasite?

She'd only be a parasite if she claimed a monopoly on her license and threatened any alternative with violence and imprisonment.

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