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Are jobs obsolete?

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Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#31

Post by ekianjo »

angstrom wrote: post #16
jerrya wrote: post #10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Work The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era is a non-fiction book by American economist Jeremy Rifkin, published in 1995 by Putnam Publishing Group.[1] In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminates tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and servic…

Peak Labor. Anyone that's ever argued this in the past 200 years has been called a luddite. Yet, in the past 40 years as computers have automated more work, both labor and white collar, it's become clear that the productivity gains are only making it into the pockets of the 20% or so that own investments.

The productivity gains also make it to everyone. That's why you are able to buy a computer for so cheap these days. A PC used to cost more than 10 000 dollars in the 80s. There's no such thing as productivity gains being valuable only to investors. It's a win-win for both investors and consumers. It's no zero-sum game.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#32

Post by ctdonath »

He fails to note that wealth decays. It cannot be redistributed indefinitely. Those who create wealth must have enough incentive to keep doing so to support (voluntary or not) those who don't. Take away too much wealth from those who created it and they'll stop creating more, and what wealth there is will be consumed and/or squandered out of existence.

Note that, in the USA at least, federal government revenue never exceeds 20% of GDP. Try taking more, and GDP declines - to wit, producers slow or stop.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#33

Post by sc68cal »

The USPS may not be an ideal case study, since it is the only entity that is required to pre-fund 75 years worth of health benefits to employees.

http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/pr11_102.h...

"Without enactment of legislation by the end of this month, the Postal Service faces default, as funds will be insufficient to make a congressionally mandated $5.5 billion payment to pre-fund retiree health benefits, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe told a Senate committee today."

This was a manufactured crisis, passed by a lame duck Republican congress in 2006. See Title VIII - Postal Service Retirement and Health Benefits Funding in the following link:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-6407

Yes - E-mail has made an impact on the USPS' bottom line, but it's because of POLITICS that the USPS is in such bad shape.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#34

Post by thaddeusmt »

The abstraction of "jobs" from "the things we do to survive" is interesting. The only things we "need" to do are reproduce, and find food and shelter towards that end. It's crazy that we have blown past the struggle for survival so far it's almost been forgotten, like the binary code under our lovely Ruby scripts.

But we still feel the flutter of our primal fears for survival, even in the abstraction, and fight to the death over increasingly excessive piles of wealth, as if we might not "survive". And because we do that, in the global picture not everyone DOES survive. If you are convinced you do not have enough to survive, it's very hard to share.

Even worse, as our personal bar of "survival" continues to rise in this abstract world, our frantic and instinctual struggle to "survive" is apparently driving us towards an incredibly sad and ironic demise - if you believe the headlines about nuclear war and global warming.

I agree with the article's idea that as technology takes care of more and more basic needs we should move to "information-based products" to keep ourselves busy and satisfied. We have to. All the world's billions can't have two cars in the garage, but they can all have giant digital art and music collections. (I guess we could do more recreation/sporting too, that's not a finite resource.)

But it's another level of abstraction. How far can we get from our concrete instincts for food and babies and still find sufficient meaning and purpose?

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#35

Post by skylan_q »

Not many have mentioned policy here, just automation.

How are we to create sustainable jobs if we keep taxing, regulating, etc... such that we increase the requirement for marginal productivity of labor in order to turn a profit?

Basically, on-the-job training and low skills employment could be made more profitable by making it so that there is some room left for the free market. If they have lower non-employment costs, then they will be able to hire less productive people. This drives demand for employment, and thus, wages.

But I'm not suggesting that this will ever happen. ;) Some people in power pay lip service to the free market while attacking it, and others aren't shy about attacking it. We create "make work" jobs that come at the cost of companies and individuals. If it didn't come at the cost of companies and individuals their costs would be lower. If enough wiggle room was given, on-the-jobs training would be possible, and low-skills labor more profitable.

As of April, the US will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. This approach doesn't seem to be solving the inequality of wealth problem, and it doesn't look like it's giving people a way to earn their living.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#36

Post by [deleted] »

philwelch wrote: post #27

I love how the media overreacts to everything. Here's a pretty obvious maxim: nothing is as good as it seems at its best, and nothing is as bad as it seems at its worst. To wit: the recession and slow recovery of the last couple of years are just that, a recession and slow recovery--they aren't a harbinger to the end of capitalism or conventional labor or employment. The jobs are already coming back. Psychologically,…

[deleted]

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#37

Post by zasz »

ekianjo wrote: post #31
angstrom wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peak Labor. Anyone that's ever argued this in the past 200 years has been called a luddite. Yet, in the past 40 years as computers have automated more work, both labor and white collar, it's become clear that the productivity gains are only making it into the pockets of the 20% or so that own investments.

The productivity gains also make it to everyone. That's why you are able to buy a computer for so cheap these days. A PC used to cost more than 10 000 dollars in the 80s. There's no such thing as productivity gains being valuable only to investors. It's a win-win for both investors and consumers. It's no zero-sum game.

Can you eat a computer? Will it treat your hernia? No. You need a job that gives you money for those things, and not everyone can hack it as a programmer.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#38

Post by sliverstorm »

ttt_ wrote: post #3

Somewhere out there there's a social model that makes a lot more sense and just works, but we can't fathom it right now because we are so busy worrying about competing over pieces on the ground.

I presume you meant "pieces of the ground".

If my assumption is correct, let me reply- land has real value. This is for two reasons.

First, everybody occupies space. We all live somewhere; space is valuable because we all have to occupy it, the same way that food is valuable because we all have to eat.

Second, all wealth originates from two sources; human labor/effort, and natural resources. Natural resources are harvested from land.

Thus, the competition over plots of land will go away only if land becomes so plentiful (or humans become so scarce) its value is unimportant, AND resources become so plentiful their value is also nominal. An example is air; it has little value, even though we all have to breathe, because there is so much of it.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#39

Post by delackner »

Jare wrote: post #21
aurynn wrote: post #6

Charlie Stross brought this idea up on his blog recently; what does a post work-for-pay world look like? What would you do if you had a home, food, and health care as a basic right? Could we even get there with our current basic cultural value being that if you don't work, you have no value?

Yes we could: replace 'work' with 'contribute' and it makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't believe in the mid- and long-term viability of a society that supports its members without requiring them to participate in its existence, development and improvement. Without some form of obligation, it would stagnate into a world of (so to speak) couch potatoes too easily. If I had a home, food and health care as a basic right, w…

Contribute is right. People might talk about how many people experienced (listened,read,saw) their work this year, which is already happening, only people worry endlessly about how they will get paid today, and tomorrow they might just worry about how they will get seen.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#40

Post by ekianjo »

zasz wrote: post #37
ekianjo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The productivity gains also make it to everyone. That's why you are able to buy a computer for so cheap these days. A PC used to cost more than 10 000 dollars in the 80s. There's no such thing as productivity gains being valuable only to investors. It's a win-win for both investors and consumers. It's no zero-sum game.

Can you eat a computer? Will it treat your hernia? No. You need a job that gives you money for those things, and not everyone can hack it as a programmer.

I am using computers as an example of how productivity gains benefit everyone. I was replying to the claim that productivity gains only enrich the investors, which is patently false. I was not talking about jobs at all. My point is that the whole planet (as a whole) is getting richer, whether you realize it or not.
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