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What happens when we don't need laborers anymore

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by rockbox, May 27, 2016.

  1. StupidMoniker

    StupidMoniker I lost a bet
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    This is simply a fundamental misunderstanding of labor and capital. Employment is a mutually beneficial exchange or the time and effort of the employee for the capital of the employer. Neither side necessarily wins or loses such an exchange (though either side can win or lose negotiations of the rate of exchange). The employee benefits if the money and benefits he receives have more value to him than the time and effort he expends. The employer benefits if the time and labor provided by the employee produces more income than is spent retaining the employee. Both of those can be true at the same time.
     
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  2. glynch

    glynch Contributing Member

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    We are in a bind from a conservative point of view. It will take many years if ever before the folks running things realize what is happening, The people who bother to vote or who are not suppressed in their voting will remain contentedly employed. They will continue to worry about destroying the moral fiber of non-working folks if you give them long term unemployment insurance or a universal basic income. They will see them as lazy folks who brought it upon themselves by not going to church enough or praying for abundance enough.

    The dispossessed after suffering will rebel, turn to crime or go crazy. This will temporarily solve the problem as it does now. Jobs will be created in police forces and security guard industries and the rural or jobless areas jobs will be created by housing these folks in prisons and mental hospitals.

    As suggested another source of unemploymebt is we can keep hiring folks by the for war and in the military. This also provides jobs making stuff to blow up or let rust even if in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever after attempts to install democracy. building crap for war will still be seen as profitable enough for the .1% to steer society into creating.

    One thing we should never do is use gubmint money (taxes, theft doncha know) to hire teachers, social workers as this does not give the .1% the highest return quarter to quarter. Folks could be hired to retrofit or install solar energy , but this will require overcoming the massive media and propaganda expenditures by the fossil fuel industry who push climate change ss a Chinese communist , because, again, retrofitting or renewal energy does not provide the highest return of capital in the next few quarters..
     
  3. Amiga

    Amiga I get vaunted sacred revelations from social media
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    IF (big IF) laborer is not needed, why is an income even needed? Once we have robots to take care of the basic essential (shelter, food, medicine), we should be shifting our focus from wealth creation to well-being creation. Having an army of machines to take care of us give us opportunity to focus on what make us happy, not how to survive. I don't think money is needed in the equation at that point. People will do what they love and some of that will include the natural desire to improve life for others, improve machines to take care of humans and make best use of resources, to explore, to learn, ...

    But of course, laborer is still needed for the very long perceivable future. But more will be left out in the cold during the transition --- basic income might be a solution, but I'm not so sure. It's politically toxic and the root of the issues are not solved --- just not enough job to go around. But perhaps the issues isn't the # of jobs available, but how everyone can contribute in some ways. Less hours for all? More vacation? .... who knows what the answer is but it seems like a huge opportunity to take advantage of technology to improve livelihood. Maybe as a starter, not a basic income, but a basic access to these technology to all --- uplift the whole human population, not just a small %, enabling a spread of the workload so everyone has a chance to contribute.
     
    #43 Amiga, Feb 15, 2017
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2017
  4. pirc1

    pirc1 Contributing Member

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    What if the robots are controlled by the 0.01%? Why should they share their wealth?
     
  5. The Stig

    The Stig Member

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    We all evolve into a society you see in Wall-e.
     
  6. Amiga

    Amiga I get vaunted sacred revelations from social media
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    That's the point... they will be accessible only to a few. Because it's a more acceptable solution than to share their real "self"-earned wealth (basic income)? Fish for someone, or provide them with access to the tool and teach them how to fish for themselves?
     
  7. wouldabeen23

    wouldabeen23 Contributing Member

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    THIS^^^ Wall-e and Idiocracy are the two directions we are headed in, at least Wall-e offers some hope at redemption....Idiocracy just leads to Mad-Max Beyond Thunderdome.
     
  8. Mathloom

    Mathloom Contributing Member

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    lol I wish this were true. But we don't live in a fantasy land. We live in the world and we can't be idealists.

    Reality is not subjective like that. The employer defines winning as making more from the employee than what he paid to have the employee. If he doesn't expect to win, he will not employ the person, even if that is the market value of the person, because of what you would call a distorted market and what I would call the mythical fairytale of there being such a thing as an efficient market. The employer is at more liberty to decline the transaction because in our market, the employer typically has money to fall back on whereas the employee has to get the job to eat and get shelter and to get healthcare.

    Further, it is easy for employers to think together and going to another employer will rarely yield better results for the employee in the same industry. Even further than that, employers historically show a pattern of annihilating the employee market's ability to organize and collectively pit their labor against the totality of the money which it's meant to be exchanged for. This is why there is such a major effort, for example, in autocratic countries to crush unions and make them useless or illegal. It's a pattern that is also common in the United States.

    The employee on the other hand will accept employment at market price even if it is below what they believe they are worth. They are free to not accept the deal, but the consequences of that choice are dire particularly because the market we live in is not in a vaccuum.

    Given these two perspectives, you can see how ultimately employees will be making less than they are worth and employers will be making a profit on a balance sheet. It is not a subjective exercise. It is a dollar for contractual work arrangement. One will be worth more than the other. A company where the employees are producing more than the value of the company retaining them, is a company making a loss. That company typically goes on to shrink their payroll or go out of business.
     
  9. StupidMoniker

    StupidMoniker I lost a bet
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    That was not a post based on idealism, it is a description of factual reality.
    Is this not precisely what I wrote (and you quoted)?
    Using the definition of winning that we both agree upon (I used the term benefit, rather than win, because winning implies losing), a business would not survive long if they routinely paid its employees more than what the employee's labor produces for the business.
    Those are factors the employee can consider in determining if the offered compensation is sufficient for the time and effort he is being asked to expend. Someone who is in more desparate need may decide that lower compensation is acceptable for his labor than someone who is comfortable.
    Individual employees generally are not required to accept any offer of employment by law or force. Some exceptions obviously exist (though involuntary servitude is pretty much universally illegal).
    It isn't about what you believe you are worth, it is about the compensation you can command. You can believe you are a fairy princess who must be given a castle and servants, but believing doesn't make it so.
    I don't know how you are making a determination of what labor is worth. I would say labor is worth whatever the employee is able to command in the marketplace, just like the goods or services they produce.
     
  10. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    There's a social aspect in Conservatism that adheres strongly to Leo Strauss' teachings or at least practiced by his followers who embedded themselves into politics. Even though a UBI is more likely a consequence of automation rather than it's own reason (Grand Canyon-esque income inequality), it would cement government's role in our lives in a more "debasing way", and undermine how much work sustains and fulfills that "meaningful" aspect in our lives.

    Under a UBI, who are the winners and losers? Why would I want to live in Coalsville, W. Virginia when I can have a same subsidized standard of living in a competitive coastal city?

    What does that all mean in the greater scheme of things?

    Some wiki snippets and commentary on Strauss's thoughts.

    This might be what some Connies consider the "Liberal sickness" even if they've never heard the likes of Leo Strauss or his more prominent students. If they could only describe it in their own words.

    If you don't work hard and prove it with a fat paycheck to assert self-inflated dominance, that does still make you Exceptional?

    What else to you have? Cheap but very fun toys?

    Is that akin to taking the blue pill in the Matrix? What color is heroin?

    Writing this reminds me of this article The Free-Time Paradox in America on the Atlantic:

    If you've read this far and are interested in Strauss' impact in Conservatism today, this article might be interesting.
     
    #50 Invisible Fan, Feb 16, 2017
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2017
  11. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    [​IMG]
     
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  12. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    The Dugger family can get behind this.

    [​IMG]
     
  13. glynch

    glynch Contributing Member

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  14. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    Maybe it will be like Small Wonder, or Cherry 2000.
     
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  15. Buck Turgidson

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    I'd buy one of those for a dollar.
     
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  16. PhiSlammaJamma

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    Interesting to me is the criticism that Millenials get for poor work ethic, yet, working more efficiently or not working at all is actually what we all have been striving for. And here it comes. I get them.
     
  17. calurker

    calurker Contributing Member

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  18. Jugdish

    Jugdish Member

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  19. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Contributing Member

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    Nearly three years later, on my morning commute to work this morning I saw a group of men wielding hammers and shovels at a job site.

    Maybe they’re just actors performing historical roles about what life was like in 2016...or 1916.
     
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  20. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    ryan_98 likes this.

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