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What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

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Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#181

Post by nico_h »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #170
chadcmulligan wrote: post #136

Maybe a better approach is how can we spend the surplus labour? There are lots of things I see need doing looking around my neighbourhood - public parks need cleaning up, old houses could be torn down and make some nice new ones, old roads could be fixed. Probably stacks of other things. Maybe some creative accounting will enable us to do these things? I know national parks near me have great paths that were built in…

I agree with this sentiment. There is a lot of work that needs doing. There are also a lot of parents out there with young children who could use a nanny. There's a need for more therapists, or just people to talk to. There's a lot of work that needs doing. There's an abundance of people to do the work, and I feel like we have plenty of natural resources. It seems to me that we could build housing for everyone, we ha…

Heck, even if you made that proposition to a fast food worker that he could do meaningful work instead of smelling like fried stuff all the time and always be worried about working enough hours for a crappy boss and no future, or to a janitor that he could help someone instead of cleaning pee all day, maybe they would do that instead. Maybe even to an office drone, who knows.

Right now people work because otherwise they die, socially in civilized continental Europe, possibly literally in "modern" America (and possibly the UK).

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#182

Post by nhaehnle »

nico_h wrote: post #153
rdtsc wrote: post #82

> Most jobs aren’t created by private, corporate investment, so raising taxes on corporate income won’t affect employment. But won't raising taxes on corporate income drive corporation to other jurisdiction? So employment in that company then won't just slowly trail off, but will look like a cliff, dropping to 0. So isn't that idea ignoring the fact that companies don't have to stick into one place and so we arbitrar…

This are the idea I have been struggling with: 1) how do you get people to accept the existence of basic income without perceiving the beneficiaries as moochers. 2) what do people on basic do? Right now your example of people visiting the elderly is in some place paid work but can also be performed by volunteer. However volunteers should be vetted. My guess is that when everybody is on basic, you can earn "social cre…

Well, we already have a form of "social credits". It's called money. We're just not used to thinking of it that way, but that's really what money is.

So replace "social credits" in your line of thinking by money, and you've basically arrived at the idea of a Job Guarantee. And somebody who works for their money is no longer a moocher, so...

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#183

Post by Avshalom »

cperciva wrote: post #59
thesagan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Loo…

"Trade and exploiting comparative advantages yields greater utility" is about as hard a law as any.

Being a happy Subaru owner I'm rather glad Japan ignored comparative advantage.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#184

Post by nico_h »

a3n wrote: post #40
Practicality wrote: post #4

At 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? In the United States it will be the class warfare/starving thing. You don't deserve anything here unless you pay for it. Many people believe that taking unemployment compensation is shameful. I think a lot of us will be fed in p…

You mean made to work for insulting wages and subsistence in prison sweatshops. Prison population is a captive source of cheap labor, easily abused and exploited.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#185

Post by elihu »

carsongross wrote: post #2

The 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...

> "Around the start of the 20th century, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc drew together the disparate experiences of the various cooperatives and friendly societies in Northern England, Ireland, and Northern Europe into a coherent political ideology which specifically advocated widespread private ownership of housing and control of industry through owner-operated small businesses and worker-controlled cooperatives. In the United States in the 1930s, distributism was treated in numerous essays by Chesterton, Belloc and others in The American Review, published and edited by Seward Collins. Pivotal among Belloc's and Chesterton's other works regarding distributism are The Servile State,[33] and Outline of Sanity.[34]"

That's interesting that Chesterton was an advocate of distributism. I've read a couple of his books, but but I wasn't aware of his political/social views.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#186

Post by visarga »

AmirS2 wrote: post #87
Practicality wrote: post #4

At 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…

> fulltime labor for everyone is simply not going to happen. We just don't need it. and from the article > there’s not enough work to go around I disagree. There's not enough paid employment to go around, but there is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done! Our entire society needs to be weaned off its carbon dependence if we want humans to survive the next century. This will involve at the very least the w…

> there's no point leaving people unemployed while there's still work that needs to be done

Yes, and the government can compensate for unemployment by investing in public works, at least until the automation reaches a level where UBI needs to be implemented.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#187

Post by ng12 »

jondubois wrote: post #135

I agree with the characterization of investment bankers and hedge fund managers as 'gangsters'. I'm tired of hearing these people rationalize their work as being 'to allocate capital efficiently' - Their real job description is 'to dilute real value and centralize capital'. These people don't create jobs; they transfer jobs from small businesses to big corporations. Those big corporations gain market share not by off…

I don't think people rationalize it like that. I think they rationalize it as "I can make a lot of money here so I will". The only way it gets better if you can disincentivize people from acting in self-interest which doesn't really work in a capitalist society.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#188

Post by visarga »

ant6n wrote: post #161
AmirS2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fulltime labor for everyone is simply not going to happen. We just don't need it. and from the article > there’s not enough work to go around I disagree. There's not enough paid employment to go around, but there is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done! Our entire society needs to be weaned off its carbon dependence if we want humans to survive the next century. This will involve at the very least the w…

Given that the total of humanity produces all necessary food, consumables and other services today, it seems that humanity generates and requires an amount of work that seems to be in some sort of equilibrium right now. The rest is just a matter of distribution.

Humanity is divided, especially around wealth, and the new technologies will make the rich richer in the short to medium term, which will make the poor poorer especially now that they lose their jobs. How will we handle that situation?

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#189

Post by crdoconnor »

henrikschroder wrote: post #75
crdoconnor wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Got it. It's a pretty flimsy disguise though. If people are simultaneously complaining about bad infrastructure and high taxes, then they are simply saying that they want their earned money themselves more than they want to use it for shared infrastructure projects. People would just rather have the latest iPhone than good highways. :-/

>If people are simultaneously complaining about bad infrastructure and high taxes, then they are simply saying that they want their earned money themselves more than they want to use it for shared infrastructure projects.

Sure, and the American people picked Trump as leader because they thought he was the most qualified person in the entire country.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#190

Post by aidos »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #180
chadcmulligan wrote: post #136

Maybe a better approach is how can we spend the surplus labour? There are lots of things I see need doing looking around my neighbourhood - public parks need cleaning up, old houses could be torn down and make some nice new ones, old roads could be fixed. Probably stacks of other things. Maybe some creative accounting will enable us to do these things? I know national parks near me have great paths that were built in…

I resent the idea that my surplus labour is anyone's but mine to spend. Certainly you could create infinite amounts of "paid" makework but in the end it amounts to keeping a system going for its own sake, and wasting people's potential by allocating them "dig a hole and fill it in" jobs when they could be being creative.

I think you've take the uncharitable view of an implication that everyone is forced to work to fill up hours.

Realistically there are loads of things that could be done to make the world a better place. Equally there are lots of people out of work. If someone can provide the funds to marry those things together, it's a win win. But who pays? Maybe Apple could go all philanthropic and depart with all that cash they're carrying.

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