Related short story - http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
41–50 of 576 posts
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#42"Jobs" are a relatively recent phenomenon, and are not forever. Inequality, however, was and is forever. Basic income is economically unsustainable.
All basic income does is define a minimum possible level of income. And, for economic purposes it really doesn't matter whether you measure income in goods or currency (economic sustainability remains the same either way).
So what you're really saying is that it's not possible to guarantee any minimum level of living at all, at least not in a way that's economically sustainable. Conversely this would imply that a functioning economy requires some people to fail to reach any standard of living whatsoever (basically they die from lack of food, housing, medical care, etc.).
So sure, any level of basic income might be economically unsustainable, but if so then a functioning economy seems rather overrated.
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you're saying there's no way to reach post-labour before post-scarcity? Hmm, that's interesting, I hope it's not true.
I'm saying that austerity is being disguised as near-post-scarcity. Jobs are hard to come by in the US at the same time that infrastructure is crumbling. That's a lack of jobs not a lack of necessary work.
Very true: http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#44> there’s not enough work to go around, and what there is of it won’t pay the bills – unless of course you’ve landed a job as a drug dealer or a Wall Street banker, becoming a gangster either way. This kind of lazy discourse from someone who has authored a whole book on the topic under discussion is remarkable.
I'd say that it's disappointing, but not remarkable. Getting a book published doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to; publishers have much lower up-front costs, so they don't need to be as selective in who and what they publish.
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#45The essay suffers from Ted-talk disease: lots of grand gestures and bromides, not as much rigorous thinking. The underlying problem is an important one, however. A little-discussed solution to this problem is one I would like to see tried, distributism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism A book I am currently reading (and enjoying) on it is: https://www.amazon.com/Toward-Truly-Free-Market-Distributist...
> Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery, plumbers who own their own tools, software developers who own their own computer Nonsense. Our abundance is increased by specialization not a lack of it. Specialization and…
Specialization is (mostly) orthogonal from self-ownership. Distributism is concerned not primarily with autarkic relationships, but rather with reducing the amount of usury, rent and wage slavery.
Yes, self reliance (and sustainability) is more emphasized than it is in modern liberal western economics, but that doesn't denigrate the concept of specialization, it just elevates other aspects of political economy as well.
It's a set of ideas worth approaching with an open mind, in my opinion. John Medaille's books is very well written, even if you don't agree with much of it.
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#46The essay suffers from Ted-talk disease: lots of grand gestures and bromides, not as much rigorous thinking. The underlying problem is an important one, however. A little-discussed solution to this problem is one I would like to see tried, distributism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism A book I am currently reading (and enjoying) on it is: https://www.amazon.com/Toward-Truly-Free-Market-Distributist...
> Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery, plumbers who own their own tools, software developers who own their own computer Nonsense. Our abundance is increased by specialization not a lack of it. Specialization and…
That's definitely a problem in the limit. However, we are nowhere close to that limit: our economy now mostly consists of vertically-integrated monopolies and oligopolies. Just think about, say, Comcast, which is simultaneously the most hated firm in America and yet subject to neither government regulation nor market competition.
Among simple and easy slogans for solving our problems, "break them all up" is actually a pretty good one.
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#47"Jobs" are a relatively recent phenomenon, and are not forever. Inequality, however, was and is forever. Basic income is economically unsustainable.
Why is it unsustainable? Why must inequality be forever?
No physical system is uniformly distributed, and dynamical systems ensure that it will stay that way, therefore enough differences are baked into the system that it's effectively impossible have equally functional systems everywhere.
Some people can just lift more stuff than others, or think about numbers faster or whatever happens to need to be done and their labor is more valuable because it's more efficient. Therefore inequality.
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery, plumbers who own their own tools, software developers who own their own computer Nonsense. Our abundance is increased by specialization not a lack of it. Specialization and…
If 5 companies all invest R&D in developing smartphones that fulfill essentially the same purpose, is 4/5ths of the R&D money wasted? I'd say not -- competition decreases prices and increases quality. Even if it's "morally" redundant as compared to a world run by a benevolent supercomputer, it serves a concrete purpose with concrete benefits. Similarly, if a tractor can prevent Joe from working a miserable low-skill…
Agreed. Take something relatively recent, water resistance in modern smart phones, had Samsung R&D not gone down that rabbit hole it would not be nearly as ubiquitous.
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#49At this point I've already come to accept that fulltime labor for everyone is simply not going to happen. We just don't need it. The big question is will the majority be able to maintain enough power to obtain income for those who aren't working, or will we see some kind of serious class warfare/starving populations? This is a huge question in human history and it remains to be seen how we as a species are going to a…
>The big question is will the majority be able to maintain enough power to obtain income for those who aren't working, or will we see some kind of serious class warfare/starving populations?
We already have class warfare and mass hunger (the number of people who go partially hungry despite food-stamps and food banks is atrocious, let alone the number who would starve without such programs). The current answer from the lower classes has been the revival of organized labor among Fight for 15 and other movements. It's our job in the "higher" working class, having more education and leeway to operate, to throw out economic and political force behind both the social movements of the lower classes and behind "full unemployment" measures such as universal health-care and reduced working hours.
Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generally speaking, I agree with the overall content of your post. However your first and last sentences really emphasise for me the real problem: oversimplifying and stratifying the discussion. "Nonsense" is an extreme overstatement, there are nuances to both arguments. "This is economics 101" is exactly the problem: we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working. Questioning economics 101 is precisely wha…
"This is economics 101" is exactly the problem: we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working. Questioning economics 101 is precisely what's needed, and I'd argue that while your arguments are sound, they've been treated as absolutes, which they're not. This makes as much sense as saying "You say that my magical spacecraft won't work due to the laws of physics, but physics is exactly the problem: We can't…
Begging the question; economics is not a physical science where you can run A/B tests on an economy and find results. It's a social study, mostly. As someone who studied it for years, institutionally and on my own, I can tell you that economists do not agree on any basic laws except that people have a long list of wants and that not all of them can be satisfied.
Many economists are questioning their 101s lately. Look closely in the various journals and you'll see evidence of that, both explicitly and implicitly.