The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
1–10 of 107 posts
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#2Current top comment:
I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down (say we run out of fossil fuels without developing a cheap alternative or all our productivity starts going to dealing with run-away climate change) then you just decrease the guaranteed minimum income. --Mark Russo
This.
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#3This is a serious and interesting subject which requires a better treatment than emotive words like "hand-wringing" and "worriers", and a conclusion with more depth than "in the long run, we're all dead." All the author really says is that experts disagree on the effects of automation (who would have guessed?) and that this might lead to lower pay and fewer jobs (again, hardly news).
Meaningless assertions like "the education system has to change to prepare young people for a world in which most of today’s jobs are automated" don't begin to answer the real question - how are we to be prepared for this change? What are we expected to do with our time without paid work? How does an economy run if a significant number of people are not earning more than a basic wage?
Fascinating subject, superficial and unhelpful article.
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#4Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…
I don't see a way to get there, for most nations. Big nations would have the most trouble introducing this. And what about immigration?
Immigration can't be effectively regulated by any means available to a moderately democratic state. Should immigrants receive the BLS? If yes, you go broke. If no, the immigrants are essentially second-class citizens who have to work for an extremely low wage (because they would have to pay indirectly for the BLS).
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#5Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…
I legitimately do not believe that this would work in the US before an extreme collapse of the current system - including but not limited to a civil war.
I believe this because we have a hard enough time pushing through cursory and very basic social welfare programs. Quite literally guaranteeing someone a basic income with 0 work involved would be as palatable as thumb tacks to many individuals in the states. Logic doesn't really carry that far anymore, and I'm not sure why.
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#6Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…
Yeah, but then you're creating a whole class of people who basically don't have anything anything to do. They will inevitably find things to fill that vacuum, such as having lots of babies. What happens when population growth outstrips the ability of production to provide for the needs of non-production? Unless you assume that productivity can scale up indefinitely, those people will just get poorer and poorer as wealth needs to be shared between more and more non-productive people.
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#7Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…
Yeah, but then you're creating a whole class of people who basically don't have anything anything to do. They will inevitably find things to fill that vacuum, such as having lots of babies. What happens when population growth outstrips the ability of production to provide for the needs of non-production? Unless you assume that productivity can scale up indefinitely, those people will just get poorer and poorer as wea…
First of all, the consequence of free time isn't necessarily more children. In fact, as people move up from poverty to "middle-class" lifestyle (with more free time as well), they have less children.
Second, China solved the overpopulation problem quite well with the one-child policy (maybe too well, even).
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#8Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…
Yeah, but then you're creating a whole class of people who basically don't have anything anything to do. They will inevitably find things to fill that vacuum, such as having lots of babies. What happens when population growth outstrips the ability of production to provide for the needs of non-production? Unless you assume that productivity can scale up indefinitely, those people will just get poorer and poorer as wea…
Productivity doesn't need to scale up indefinitely - it just needs to be able to scale up until it's enough.
Silly but simple thought experiment: - 10 people on an island - 2 people can pick enough coconuts for all 10 to eat well - Using a ladder, productivity picks up enough so 1 person can pick enough coconuts for all 10 - A coconut picking robot is developed, picking enough coconuts for all 10 The coconut picking robot's productivity can't scale indefinitely but it doesn't have to.
I am sure you can see the implications of using robots in the real world.
Edit: Speaking of babies, prof. Hans Rosling's TED talks are mandatory. http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#9Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…
I don't see a way to get there, for most nations. Big nations would have the most trouble introducing this. And what about immigration? Immigration can't be effectively regulated by any means available to a moderately democratic state. Should immigrants receive the BLS? If yes, you go broke. If no, the immigrants are essentially second-class citizens who have to work for an extremely low wage (because they would have…
Immigrants aren't even citizens; I don't think they receive any sort of social security in most countries even today. I'm not saying that's the optimal policy, just that they wouldn't be worse-off.
Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?
#10Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…
I legitimately do not believe that this would work in the US before an extreme collapse of the current system - including but not limited to a civil war. I believe this because we have a hard enough time pushing through cursory and very basic social welfare programs. Quite literally guaranteeing someone a basic income with 0 work involved would be as palatable as thumb tacks to many individuals in the states. Logic d…
Don't worry, an obvious solution will present itself as soon as unemployment reaches 50% of the voting population.