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Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

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Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#71

Post by kaybe »

blumkvist wrote: post #65
rjsw wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think printing is a good example, there were not that many scribes around who were suddenly put out of work.

How about the Combine Harvester? This talk about technology taking jobs from people is utter nonsense. This has happened before - the Industrialization. People are freed from unnecessary chores like harvesting or standing at the cashier, for example. Soon enough new types of jobs were in high demand - mathematicians, engineers, professors. This enabled further development in other professions - more doctors, teachers…

Not everyone is happy with an intellectual job.

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#72

Post by t-rex1 »

I keep wondering, say the rise of automation continues at the rate its going right now, eventually eliminating a lot of opportunities, then what happens to the people? how would a good number of the population be able to further earn a living? I think this growth of automation needs to be taken a bit more serious than it is right now. I can envision it causing quite a problem in the society.

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#73

Post by Robadob »

t-rex1 wrote: post #72

I keep wondering, say the rise of automation continues at the rate its going right now, eventually eliminating a lot of opportunities, then what happens to the people? how would a good number of the population be able to further earn a living? I think this growth of automation needs to be taken a bit more serious than it is right now. I can envision it causing quite a problem in the society.

Basic income is a proposed economic solution that would change welfare such that everyone receives enough money to survive from the government and is therefore encouraged to work to earn money for greater comforts. It's been suggested that this model of welfare allows people to work less hours with other possible benefits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

I've not studied economics but I would expect there might be other proposals which could also be suitable for a society with far greater population than jobs.

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#74

Post by pizza234 »

kaybe wrote: post #71
blumkvist wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the Combine Harvester? This talk about technology taking jobs from people is utter nonsense. This has happened before - the Industrialization. People are freed from unnecessary chores like harvesting or standing at the cashier, for example. Soon enough new types of jobs were in high demand - mathematicians, engineers, professors. This enabled further development in other professions - more doctors, teachers…

Not everyone is happy with an intellectual job.

It's not only about intellectual jobs; it's also about more powerful abstractions. With the same resources spent on the same amount of workers for example, a company will produce more than in the past. It's not necessarily true that in such conditions, the company would choose to keep the productivity constant employing less workers.

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#75

Post by coldtea »

gboudrias wrote: post #4

> The automators will continue to get very, very rich, while the automated will have to find something else to do. Part of me thinks this will lead to make much more apparent the paradox of capitalism: Those with the most money can... make the most money. Over time this means it all gets funneled into just a few families' pockets, until they own everything (which is silly and most likely would not be put up with afte…

>Part of me thinks this will lead to make much more apparent the paradox of capitalism: Those with the most money can... make the most money.

This is not workable. Capitalism value is built on having people transfer their assets (money) in exchange for products and services. For this to work it needs paid laborers, not just in order to create the stuff but also to form the large market that buys it.

One could conceive of a future society were automators can make everything and those "automated" don't have anything to do. But that society wont be capitalistic anymore, as it wont contain any market (the majority of the people, those automated wont be part of any market).

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#76

Post by coldtea »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #14
gboudrias wrote: post #4

> The automators will continue to get very, very rich, while the automated will have to find something else to do. Part of me thinks this will lead to make much more apparent the paradox of capitalism: Those with the most money can... make the most money. Over time this means it all gets funneled into just a few families' pockets, until they own everything (which is silly and most likely would not be put up with afte…

Over time this means it all gets funneled into just a few families' pockets, until they own everything... Yes, this is a popular theory, but it doesn't appear to be happening. To quote Larry Summers: > the Forbes 400 list also provides only limited support for Piketty’s ideas that fortunes are patiently accumulated through reinvestment. When Forbes compared its list of the wealthiest Americans in 1982 and 2012, it fo…

Well, that "few families' pockets" end up owning everything is not incompatible with WHICH those families are changing over time.

Besides, 1982 was a very different time compared to 2012. China wasn't as much of a world player in manufacturing etc yet (and Japan was only beginning to get big). Plus, the whole computing explosion happened since then, throwing off many older established players, and then the Internet one. Lots of old fortunes died in those 30 years. In the last 10-15 years though?

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#77

Post by moron4hire »

gboudrias wrote: post #4

> The automators will continue to get very, very rich, while the automated will have to find something else to do. Part of me thinks this will lead to make much more apparent the paradox of capitalism: Those with the most money can... make the most money. Over time this means it all gets funneled into just a few families' pockets, until they own everything (which is silly and most likely would not be put up with afte…

Isn't what you've described capitalism's analog to physics' perpetual motion machine? It just seems that there should be frictions and inefficiencies and equilibriums such that it would require severely anti-capitalist intervention to make it happen.

Now, that's not to say we aren't seeing severely anti-capitalist intervention on a daily basis. A major consulting firm in my state got passed a bill to require consulting software developers to be licensed as engineers, then promptly got themselves exempted from it, claiming their "economic interest" compelled them to secure well-trained engineers, even if they weren't licensed.

But if a single actor has all of the money, then wouldn't the money becomes useless? People need things--shelter, food, clothing--not money. Money is only useful if it is a convenient medium for trading labor for things. And if people can't get the things they need, then wouldn't we all just walk away from the old system.

And if a single actor has all the property, then what's the point if there's nobody to charge rent?

Again, barring severely anti-capitalist intervention, like a government ban on travel.

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#78

Post by sheepmullet »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #47
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how these monies will be collected Taxation. > what rationale there is for distributing it (other than the implicit acknowledgement that the alternative is civil unrest) A basic income removes the need for a long list of bureaucratic social programs like social security, food stamps, housing assistance, pell grants, etc. etc. It's the free market solution for social welfare programs. You allow individuals to decide…

Inflation comes from increasing the money supply faster than the size of the economy increases. This is a strange Austrian definition and is not widely accepted. The normal definition of inflation is increases in the value of a basket of consumption. CPI is a good proxy for this over the short term (in the long term CPI becomes useless for this purpose since the basket changes). If BI increases demand for consumption…

"If BI increases demand for consumption (as most of it's proponents claim it will), then the price of consumption will increase - hence, inflation."

Increased consumption does not necessarily lead to a long term price increase. Often it results in lower prices due to ability to invest in projects with larger upfront/fixed costs.

The only goods that would necessarily increase in price are ones where the supply is currently at, or close to, capacity, and it is difficult/expensive to increase the supply. This isn't the case for most goods.

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#79

Post by moron4hire »

thewarrior wrote: post #40
tluyben2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that; I said I see a rise (also in Bangalore) of actual sweatshops (my definition of sweatshops is tainted by the west and especially the EU; I find workplaces where my chair touches my neighbours rather unworkable; I know actual manual labor sweatshops are much much worse than that) with coders; I never said 'Indian outsourcing companies are sweatshops' as I know that's not true at all. I just see a lot…

I don't think they're literal sweatshops as they usually have air conditioning. :P

Sounds like only so the computers don't break down.

Re: Outsourced Jobs Are No Longer Cheap, So They're Being Automated

#80

Post by yummyfajitas »

sheepmullet wrote: post #78
yummyfajitas wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation comes from increasing the money supply faster than the size of the economy increases. This is a strange Austrian definition and is not widely accepted. The normal definition of inflation is increases in the value of a basket of consumption. CPI is a good proxy for this over the short term (in the long term CPI becomes useless for this purpose since the basket changes). If BI increases demand for consumption…

"If BI increases demand for consumption (as most of it's proponents claim it will), then the price of consumption will increase - hence, inflation." Increased consumption does not necessarily lead to a long term price increase. Often it results in lower prices due to ability to invest in projects with larger upfront/fixed costs. The only goods that would necessarily increase in price are ones where the supply is curr…

This makes no sense. If we shift resources from investment to consumption, we will have fewer projects that increase production in the long term.
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