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To be fair... it's the regressive right that is most responsible for the underlying issue:
Too many birthed by those least able to provide for and educate their children.
There doing it yet again this very day:
"A push by Republican congressional leaders to defund Planned Parenthood..."
How many abortions were not administered because of lack of taxpayer funding?
Ours is a gov't of and for the people. In the distant future if only a small portion of able workers can find a useful paying job what do we do?
Distant future? Fewer than half the people have one of those useful paying jobs right now.
And while those who do have one may often enough be seen trying to pat themselves on the back for it, they are secretly trying to save up for a time when they won't have to have one anymore.
How many abortions were not administered because of lack of taxpayer funding?
"How many abortions were not administered because of right wing interventions?"
Offhand.. I'd say somewhere around HALF or TWO THIRDS of the 40-60Million I referred to.
The others are attributable to poor sex ed and meaningless contraception...
due to their efforts managed to undermine those programs as well.
hth
Last edited by toosie; 01-07-2017 at 06:31 PM..
Reason: Edited to retain your modification without altering the actual quoted post
Distribution of goods is not simply an economic problem. It is a political problem as well.
The economic problem is that there are never enough goods to satisfy everyone. The political problem is that the people who distribute goods gain control over those who receive them.
There is a book published a few years ago called the Dictator's Handbook. One of the conclusions of this book is that free people are more productive than unfree people. The causation runs both ways, according to the book. As people become more free, they have more incentives to better themselves and learn to become more productive. As people become more productive, governments grant them more freedoms since they contribute more in tax revenue. This correlation is empirically backed, although the mechanisms of causation are the hypotheses of the authors.
Automation breaks down this correlation. You can grant people more freedoms, and the people can be more incentivized by these freedoms to better themselves, but there is no way they can be more productive than a machine. Historically, there was a progression from slave economies to citizen economies as the ability to develop human capital increased. Now we are reaching the limit of human capital development and machine capital development is surpassing it. As a result there is a third economy emerging, one powered not by slaves or citizens, but by machines.
I predict there will be no kumbaya moment when we realize we will all be better off if we share the proceeds of the machine economy. Human nature has never worked that way. If a machine-owning elite is capable of running the economy by themselves and repressing the rest of the population, they will. The only thing that has held back such an elite historically is the limitations on the productivity of the small number of people in this elite. However, now machine owners can magnify their productivity like never before.
There is partial precedent for this. Palace economy and feudal kings were able to control large populations by concentrating their efforts on military ability. This advantage disappeared most recently after the gun was invented. However now the elites are coming back, and they will be even more powerful than bronze age or feudal kings because they will be able to control not only the military but the entire economy with a small number of people. In this situation, many citizens are now a net liability for the state because they are not needed and yet consume resources. Population declines will follow.
The promises of UBI are a chimera. Socialist revolutions (and let's not pretend that UBI is not socialism) do not increase the productivity of the people. They merely change who is in charge. The new leaders control the people just as much as the old leaders.
A free people must maintain a critical mass of competent, reasonably self-sufficient people. We call this the middle class. If there are too few middle class people, the elites rule unchallenged. Also keep in mind that the elites sustain the dependent class as a reserve army to deploy against the middle class as needed. If there are too many dependents, the middle class can be defeated by elites who mobilize the dependents, as the kulaks were defeated during the Bolshevik revolution.
Powerful elites are inevitable given automation. What determines whether a society will be free or enslaved will be the power struggle between the middle class and the dependent class in different societies. If the kulaks defeat the proletariat, the society will have plural power centers and allow for more individual freedom. If the proletariat defeats the kulaks, the society will have a single powerful class and individual freedom will be curtailed.
Since we are reaching the limit of human capital development relative to machines, it may be the case that the best strategy for the middle class is to reduce the size of the dependent class. This will deny some power from the elite.
It's a nasty strategy, but the middle classes in democratic countries will choose it over slavery. Perhaps this rearguard action by the middle class can keep the elites at bay long enough for future technological developments to empower non-elites, such as the gun.
If you do not believe in Basic Income that is fine you will just need to tell us what we do when automation starts taking people's jobs. Saying we should not have Basic Income but not giving a better solution means you are not trying to be part of the solution or your just ignorant and do not believe automation will not take jobs or make new jobs to replace them.
...you will just need to tell us what we do when automation starts taking people's jobs.
OK. Be prepared for that CERTAINTY.
Quote:
and do not believe automation will not take jobs or make new jobs to replace them.
The issue... then or now... is NOT about the number of jobs (skill level aside).
It's about the number of people available to do them (skill level aside).
The imbalance is HUGE.
It's monumental at the lower no/low skill level and getting worse every day.
Short term:
If we would find something else to do with this pool of surplus humanity...
such that they weren't competing for even the lowest level of jobs...
The wage rates paid to do those jobs would HAVE TO increase.
Long Term:
Policies and programs that limit/reduce the birth rates among the least qualified.
(as opposed to the current policies and programs that actually encourage it)
Don't leve this problem as a legacy to your kids the way your parents left the current fiasco to you.
---
UBI isn't a solution. It's just kicking the can down the road.
Last edited by MrRational; 01-06-2017 at 03:35 PM..
The issue... then or now... is NOT about the number of jobs (skill level aside).
It's about the number of people available to do them (skill level aside).
The imbalance is HUGE.
It's monumental at the lower no/low skill level and getting worse every day.
Short term:
If we would find something else to do with this pool of surplus humanity...
such that they weren't competing for even the lowest level of jobs...
The wage rates paid to do those jobs would HAVE TO increase.
Long Term:
Policies and programs that limit/reduce the birth rates among the least qualified.
(as opposed to the current policies and programs that actually encourage it)
Don't leve this problem as a legacy to your kids the way your parents left the current fiasco to you.
---
UBI isn't a solution. It's just kicking the can down the road.
Be prepared that certainly you will not have a job anymore. Jobs from the lower level to the top are going to be automated so how much surplus we have anywhere in the economy will not matter because most everyone's job is not gonna exist anymore. You can reduce the population all you want it is not gonna change that automation will take people's jobs and their will not be enough jobs for everyone.
In theory, this reduction in jobs means an increase in output, and if output grows, then there is only more for us all to divide up -- whether we actually have a job or not. Production and distribution are after all two different things.
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