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Automation Doesn't Just Destroy Jobs - It Destroys Profits, Too
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
The idea that taxing the owners of robots and software will fund guaranteed incomes for all is not anchored in reality.
Automation is upending the global order by eliminating human labor on an unprecedented scale--and the status quo has no reality-based solution to this wholesale loss of jobs.
Two recent articles highlighted the profound consequences of advances in robotics and AI (artificial intelligence) on employment: four fundamentals of workplace automation and Robots may shatter the global economic order within a decade as the pace of automation innovation has gone from linear to parabolic (via Mish).
The status quo apologists/punditry have offered two magical-thinking solutions to the sweeping destruction of jobs across the entire spectrum of paid work:
1. Tax the robots (or owners of robots) and use the revenues to pay a guaranteed income to everyone who is unemployed or underemployed.
2. Let the price of labor fall to the point that everyone has a job of some sort, even if the pay is minimal.
Neither one is remotely practical, for reasons I will explain today and tomorrow.
Today, let's examine the misguided fantasy that automation/robotics will generate enormous profits for the owners of robots. Here's the problem in a nutshell:
As automation eats jobs, it also eats profits, since automation turns labor, goods and services into commodities. When something is commoditized, the price drops because the goods and services are interchangeable and can be produced almost anywhere.
Owners must move commoditized production to low-tax regions if they want to retain any profit at all.
Big profits flow from scarcity, i.e. when demand exceeds supply. If supply exceeds demand, prices fall and profits vanish.
(Monopoly is a state-enforced scarcity. In our state-cartel economy, there are many monopolies or quasi-monopolies. While eliminating these would lower costs, that wouldn't reverse the wholesale destruction of jobs and profits--it would only speed the process up.)
The other problem the "tax the robots and everything will be funded" crowd overlooks is the falling cost of software and robots lowers the barriers to competition: nothing destroys profits like wave after wave of hungry competitors entering a field.
The cost of automation and robotics is falling dramatically. This lowers the cost of entry for smaller, hungrier, more nimble competitors, and lowers the cost of increasing production. When virtually any small manufacturer can buy robots for less than the wages of a human laborer, where's the scarcity necessary to generate profits?
The parts needed to assemble a $45 tablet are dropping in price, and the profit margins on those parts is razor-thin because they’re commodities. Software such as the Android operating system is free, and many of the software libraries needed to assemble new software are also free.
Automation increases supply and lowers costs. Both are deadly to profits.
Here’s the core problem with the idea that taxing the owners of robots and software will fund guaranteed incomes for all: the more labor, goods and services are automated/commoditized, the lower the profits.
The current narrative assumes more wealth will be created by the digital destruction of industries and jobs, but real-world examples suggest the exact opposite: the music industry has seen revenues fall in half as digital technology ate its way through the sector.
A $14 billion industry is now a $7 billion industry. Profits and payroll taxes collected from the industry have plummeted. So much for the fantasy that technology always creates more jobs than it destroys.
As subscription music services replace sales of songs and albums, revenues will continue to decline even as consumers have greater access to more products. In other words, the destruction of sales, employment and profits is far from over.
Examples of such radical reductions in paid labor abound in daily life. To take one small example, our refrigerator recently failed. The motor was running but the compartment wasn’t being cooled. Rather than replace the appliance for hundreds of dollars or hire a high-cost repair service, I looked online, diagnosed the problem as a faulty sensor, watched a tutorial on YouTube (what I call YouTube University), ordered a new sensor for less than $20 online and completed the repair at no cost beyond a half-hour of labor, which cost me nothing in terms of cash spent.
The profit earned by YouTube was minimal, as was the profit of the firms that manufactured the sensor and shipped it. The sales and profits that were bypassed by using nearly-free digital tools were an order of magnitude higher.
I was recently interviewed via Skype by an online journalist with millions of views of his YouTube channel. A decade ago when he worked in mainstream TV journalism, an interview required costly, time-consuming travel (for the crew or the subject), a sound engineer, a camera operator, the talent (interviewer), editor and managerial review. These six jobs have been rolled into one with digital tools, and travel has been eliminated entirely.
Some will argue that the quality of the video and sound isn’t as high, but the quality of the user experience is ultimately based on the viewer’s display, which is increasingly a phone or tablet. So in terms of utility, value and impact, the product (i.e. output) produced by one person replaces the conventional media product that required six people.
My own solo digital content business would have required a handful of people (if not more) only a decade ago. With digital tools and services, it now requires just one person. Those of us who must work with digital tools to survive know firsthand that what once required a handful of workers must now be produced by one person if we hope to earn even a marginally middle-class income.
Multiply an appliance that doesn’t need to be replaced and a repair service that doesn’t need to be hired, a half-dozen positions replaced by one part-time job, a fully functional commodity tablet that costs 10% of the high-profit brand and you understand why profits will plummet as software eats the world.
These are not starry-eyed examples based on projections; these are real-world examples of widely available digital technologies destroying costs, sales and profits on a massive scale.
Some observers have suggested taxing wealth rather than profits to fund the super welfare state of guaranteed income for all. But the value of assets ultimately rests on their ability to generate a profit. As profits fall, wealth may be more chimerical than these observers believe.
Tomorrow we'll look at the rising costs of human labor and explore why this trend will persist even as labor becomes increasingly surplus.
This entry was drawn from my new book A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs for All.
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Shame we didn't get rid of electricity or the steam engine. That took away a shitload of jobs too.
Innovation and invention are THE keys to profitability. They cannot be accomplished by machines, and they must be paid for. But paying innovators results in the number of wealthy people - and bloodlines - increasing. The problem, as always, is the parasitic psychopaths at the tip-top of the pyramid, who lust for power and control above all else, and will literally fuck up the entire planet to get it. They are like any othert drug addict; they will stop at NOTHING to get their fix.
Psychopathy is genetic, inheritable and incurable. The human race has a choice to make.
Blah blah blah...
That which cannot be sustained, won't be, period. We have seen the outcome of such "let the majority eat cake" monetary experiments and the outcome will be no different this time around.
The guillotine can be thought of as a wonderful "innovation". Time to roll one down to Wall Street, K-street, and D.C. in general.
Automation doesn't destroy jobs. The greatest period of automation in history occured in the late 1800s with the development of the fractional horsepower electric motor and internal combustion engine. Fully 85% of all jobs were replaced by machinery on farms and in factories. In the early 1800s 85% of all people worked on a farm. Less than 1% farm today. Are they all unemployed?
Only government destroys jobs.
Agreed.
Automation increases productivity in areas, allowing people to pursue more productive work and allows more voluntary leisure time. If the anti-automation people had their way we'd all be subsistence farmers planting and harvesting with sharp sticks. Can't have automation make it so that one farmer with the right equipment (automation) can feed thousands (or more) now, can we?
Ah ha...pursue more productive work or allow more voluntary leisure time.
Back in the day, there were an abundance of jobs, and you did not get paid for your voluntary leisure time.
In todays bizarro world, there aren't many jobs, yet YOU GET PAID FOR LEISURE TIME !
Fuck having a job. Work is for slaves.
Eating is for slaves as well...
Nowadays we have Social Security deduction, Income Tax and other human related revenue enhancements that will be going out the IRS window when the slaves go on vacation.
There is a huge difference between automation that improves workers efficiency and automation that improves management bottom line.
Actually Artificial Intelligence and automation have reached the point where more jobs are destroyed than created.
Several books have been already written regarding this matter as well as articles written by M.I.T.
Read "The lights in the Tunnel" by Martin Ford (2009)
He discusses the problem and offers some solutions, solutions which will not sit well with readers of this site.
And that's not even getting into Government waste and the industries that thrive due to the waste.
It's a game of musical chairs, the problem is "What do we do with the people who have no chairs" ?
It's a game of musical chairs, the problem is "What do we do with the people who have no chairs" ?
They go back to subsistence farming.
Or they go to a life of leisure, living off of the work of others. Today's typical Obama voter, for example.
How would you go back to subsistence farming when monsanto has taken most of that over? Human beings need purpose in life, machines do not. Major corporations will eliminate the need for humans and thus what will follow is the loss of what it means to be human. Work is essential for most of us to feel as if we belong and have a purpose. Machines do not have a search for meaning and those that care not to work also may demonstrate what it means to have a meaningless life. So if people don't work, nor contribute, than any money they receive will be via a government agency or from corporations that request you to advertise products on t-shirts to sell to no-one as most will not have the money to survive.
Interesting scenario but I don't believe that it will play out as far as you state.
Human nature is actually to be lazy - to get the most for the least. It takes training to do otherwise. This is the greatest failure of our welfare system - allowing parents to not teach their kids work ethic. It comes down to parents and what they are modeling/teaching their children. If they teach them well the children will become adults who will produce whether machines are doing so or not. That production might be a simple weed-free lawn or a well waxed car but they will produce.
It is not work that creates a meaningful life. It is leaving the world a better place. That can range from helping others (free of charge) to helping stop soul/economy crushing Big Government.
Free the Robots!
Or, you can bite my splintery, wooden ass!
"Human beings need purpose in life"
Perfect.
The music INDUSTRY, ie the RIAA may be losing revenue, but the ARTISTS are doing just fine. They still tour, do concerts, and sell merch. That is their main source of income, and always has been. The jobs that have been eliminated are those of the middlemen. Now they can go and do something productive rather than forcing album prices to triple (or more) from what they are worth.
The endgame of all this automation is home robotization. Once you have a robot tht has access to an online library of every skill imaginable, from hanging drywall to brain surgery, you won't need money or a job any more, and neither will anyone else. Your robot army will make whatever you need for free, using local materials, or materials that it trades for using things you have in abundance. You will be the CEO and president and chairman of the board of your own company, focused on supplying yourself with goods, services, and self-actualization.
Don't resist the future because of the threat it poses to current paradigms, paradigms that place you at the bottom, with little to no voice, awash in a sea of inequity and corruption. Unlimited labor providing unlimited resources will fix human interaction. It's a good thing.
the ARTISTS are doing just fine
Really? Ever put out a record? Ever go on tour and survive on merchandise? Musicians are getting crushed. We used to sell CD's at $10 each. Then mp3's for a little less, if people don't just steal them. Now, the new venue is spotify, which pays you .001 cents per play. This is why it's only garbage music coming out now, there's no money for A&R, good audio production, etc...
This is only a matter of bandwidth and time. Video is next. Let's see what the movie studios put out when you can take a movie as easily as an mp3. You get what you pay for.
the average payment to an artist from the label portion of that is $0.001128
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/how-much-musicians-mak...
"Once you have a robot tht has access to an online library of every skill imaginable, from hanging drywall to brain surgery, you won't need money or a job any more, and neither will anyone else."
How will you trade for or otherwise acquire the energy and raw commodities to make stuff?
So, you have a replicator, everyone has a replicator, you have a mandroid that has mastered every human skill, so does everybody else. Now, only people who own/ have access to raw materials have anything of value to trade for other raw materials, in order to make stuff with the replicators.
The music INDUSTRY, ie the RIAA may be losing revenue, but the ARTISTS are doing just fine. They still tour, do concerts, and sell merch. That is their main source of income, and always has been.
Tell that to Steely Dan, or The Alan Parsons Project. The Dan tours NOW, with a 12 piece ensemble, because they have enough name recognition to do so. But during their heyday of recording, it was just Fagin and Becker, and they survived 100% on their recordings.
Alan Parsons recorded with a full studio orchestra, a full choir and a large rock band. REead the liner notes on an APP disc sometime. It's insane. There's no way in hell that could ever tour.
You actually have it backwards. The suits are getting paid. The artists are more fucked than they've dver been. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world
Self actualization comes from your capacity to be a contributor to others, not to yourself. Knowing oneself does not come from self involved activities but actually interacting in an contributory if not altruistic fashion for causes outside of yourself.
Furthermore we do not live on a planet with unlimited resources. Utopia is a fantasy, the reality of actually having machines take over human networks or work will turn out to be a nightmare both socially and economically for our societies. Social cohesion will be lost not gained, as we will have lost more and more of our purpose.
What is profitability? Startups and companies like amazon burn cash for years all that matters is stock goes up. Have a treny business and money is thrown, betted on it.
Pharma, insurance, oil all have lobbyists making laws to protect their business model and profits. They would fold otherwise to better and cheaper.
Pharma, insurance, oil all have lobbyists making laws to protect their business model and profits. They would fold otherwise to better and cheaper.
Thank you for making my point. Actual profitability comes from innovation. In a captured, crony business environment, innovation is the first victim, unless the innovator is content to dine on crumbs while the parasites in charge reap the feast.
Again, all roads lead to the psychopaths in charge. Remove them from power, free up the human race.
HopefulCynic - I'd say psychopathy is nurture and not nature. You see it in family lines because the son sees that his father's dishonesty and cutthroat behavior is rewarded. I havne't ever seen any studies that show the genetic tie, it would be interesting if there was something out there that's shown this to be true.
Agreed that innovation and invention are the keys, but it takes less than 1% of the population or less (IMO) to fill this role. When the robots are doing the production, the 1% can keep on innovating but the general populace will be left with very few choices as far as jobs go.
I agree with the author, things are going to get worse. When the US gov't decides to tax robots, the owners will just pack up and move. Same as with human labor. Unless you're an owner, you can look forward to a 3rd world existence.
Fear and Greed
Fear and Greed
Fear and Greed are natural traits of mammals.
Fear and Greed drive the insanity.
Fear and Greed are the mind killers.
Fear and Greed will take us down.
;-D
Nurture definitely plays a major role in how an individual will turn out, but there are physiological characteristics of a psychopath's brain. They're born that way. It's genetic. And in the case of ruling families, it's nature AND nurture. There is no "cure" for those indiviuals. Here are three articles; feel free to do further research, of course.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-psychopaths-brains-differences-function.html
"Images of prisoners' brains show important differences between those who are diagnosed as psychopaths and those who aren't, according to a new study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
The results could help explain the callous and impulsive anti-social behavior exhibited by some psychopaths.
The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety. Two types of brain images were collected. Diffusion tensor images (DTI) showed reduced structural integrity in the white matter fibers connecting the two areas, while a second type of image that maps brain activity, a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI), showed less coordinated activity between the vmPFC and the amygdala.
"This is the first study to show both structural and functional differences in the brains of people diagnosed with psychopathy," says Michael Koenigs, assistant professor of psychiatry in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. "Those two structures in the brain, which are believed to regulate emotion and social behavior, seem to not be communicating as they should."
http://aftermath-surviving-psychopathy.org/index.php/is-psychopathy-genetic/
"Genes play a significant role in the development of psychopathy. However socialization and other environmental factors interact with genetics, so genes are not the only determinant in whether one has psychopathic traits. Studies on the heritability of psychopathy have focused primarily on identical twins (100% shared genes) and fraternal twins (50% shared genes). One study (Larsson, Andershed, & Lichtenstein, 2006) which examined the heritability of psychopathy in twins reported that genetics accounted for approximately half of the variation in the features of psychopathy (as assessed by a self-report measure, the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory). Other studies have also reported substantial heritability to psychopathic traits when these are assessed using self-report measures (Blonigen, Hicks, Krueger, Patrick, & Iacono, 2005; Brook, Panizzon, Kosson, Sullivan, Lyons, Franz, Eisen, & Kremen, 2010)."
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/life-as-a-nonviolent-psychopath/282271/
"In 2005, James Fallon's life started to resemble the plot of a well-honed joke or big-screen thriller: A neuroscientist is working in his laboratory one day when he thinks he has stumbled upon a big mistake. He is researching Alzheimer's and using his healthy family members' brain scans as a control, while simultaneously reviewing the fMRIs of murderous psychopaths for a side project. It appears, though, that one of the killers' scans has been shuffled into the wrong batch.
The scans are anonymously labeled, so the researcher has a technician break the code to identify the individual in his family, and place his or her scan in its proper place. When he sees the results, however, Fallon immediately orders the technician to double check the code. But no mistake has been made: The brain scan that mirrors those of the psychopaths is his own.
After discovering that he had the brain of a psychopath, Fallon delved into his family tree and spoke with experts, colleagues, relatives, and friends to see if his behavior matched up with the imaging in front of him. He not only learned that few people were surprised at the outcome, but that the boundary separating him from dangerous criminals was less determinate than he presumed."
There is some promising work being done showing that psilocybin can help with long term improvements in empathy towards other people and animals. Maybe it works on the guilt part, too.
"Innovation and invention are THE keys to profitability. They cannot be accomplished by machines, and they must be paid for. "
Inventions and innovations do not have to be paid for; there are plenty of free / open source IPs. No reason to think the value of ideas will not also continue to fall.
The machines cannot innovate YET. If BAU continues, I think it is only a matter of time before machines will be able to design and create new things better than humans.
Just wait til the robots unionize, you'll have four sitting idle while the fifth does all the work.
Nah. Robots love to work. They will demand longer working hours with fewer breaks. It's going to be difficult to consume all the goods they produce, but we'll just have to do our best.
I've been lobbying to subsidize the buggy-whip industry to get those jobs back too.
it wasn't innovation and free trade that devastated europe with the plague, it was the parasitical rats and fleas that exploited it.
The music industry isn't a great example. The size of the industry may have been cut in half but at the same time the quality of the product is not one part in twenty what it once was.
Frank Zappa was asked, back in the late 80s, what advice he had for a young Frank Zappa, just starting out. His reply? "Get a real estate licence, get a day job. It's no longer possible to make a good living doing this." That has only gotten worse. So no, actually - the music business is a PERFECT example; see my post above.
The people capable of true, positive musical innovation aren't playing music for a living, because they have bills to pay. They might not play at all, they may play strictly for their own entertainment, or maybe they throw up a couple of YouTube videos as a hobby. Since they don't do it full time, they don't create the level of output, or have their talent and ability evolve, like they would if it were their career. The cookie-cutter nature of modern music, which can be fully produced by a guy with a DAW and a sample library, has taken talented and gifted ensembles and priced them right out of competition. Ditto for musicians that CHALLENGE the audience, either musically, lyrically or both. Music has become the echo chamber that politics has become.
THEN, add in bit-torrent and internet radio, and even the guy with the DAW can't make his mortgage unless he's cranking out the soul-crushing, vapid drivel demanded by the gangsters who run the music business.
Music was commoditized; that's why it sucks, and because it sucks, fewer people buy it. Textbook vicious cycle.
All your income belongs to the government as long as income tax is accepted and legal. Get over it, you are owned....until the international socialists are destroyed.
The only thing that will save us from Skynet is it will be built by the lowest bidder and programmed by out-sourced code monkeys.
Government exists as long as they can get the general population to follow their rules, but the anarchy coming from the free shit army will collapse the system.....
Yeah! Then one day the damn robot realises it could be programmed better, and promptly does it....
income tax is accepted and enforced, but it is not legal
just don't try standing up for that unless you're prepared to get "schiffed"
http://www.examiner.com/article/eight-observations-on-the-death-of-irwin...
Labor is a commodity. Deal w/ it.
OTOH, I like the idea of a guaranteed income based on taxation of robot owners and software.
Where do I go to sign up? Working is for the birds.
Automation does not always reduce profits. If that were the case, no one would automate.
Lots of automation increases profits especially if others are not able to automate as quickly.
UK economy profits from automation of jobs 17 September 2015 (0)The increasing automation of work has raised £140bn in the UK economy,
http://economia.icaew.com/news/september-2015/uk-economy-profits-from-au...
The automation first creates a boom because investments need to be made. Like China's highway system.
But once they're done they're done.
And it's not stupid robots for a specific tast, they're versatile.
And espicially the software.
Now people are still scared about it and companies hire FTE's to run the software but when they'll figure out that it's very easy and need little maintenance, those will also be fired.
Automation will be designed by Dilbert, but implemented by the pointy haired boss, which will keep people like me employed forever, fixing their fuck ups.....
as I tried to explain to my hopeful but ignorant Boss
once the new machines are up and running
it will only take one Dilbert and one Boss to run the whole department.
Only a small percentage, (and shrinking thanks to public education) of the population has the ability to be Dilbert, and only a small percentage has the butt kissing and/or networking skills required to be Boss.
Everyone else? TS
- Rev. Frederick T. Gates, Business Advisor to John D. Rockefeller Sr., 1913 [1]
"Furthermore, care home workers, teaching assistants, business and financial project managers created the largest boost to employment in the last 15 years."
But none of the above have been automated, and it is the aging population that has created the care workers, Tony Bliars' education education education created the Teaching posts, We known there is no need for all those finance bods.
So all-in-all, automation has dispensed with 800,000 jobs, but created a dole queue.
We need MOAR of this ....
It appears the CHS has not considered that the commoditizing of manufactured products does not lower wages more than it lowers the costs of manufactured goods.
Wealth is not a number, it is a material condition.
This is the plan man....kill employment globally and you will reduce the population to a few dozen Clinton types being served by robots.
This is bullshit. Followed to it's logical conclusion if someone invented a machine that could build a house for a dollar, feed you for $1 per year, and make any piece of clothing for free, we would all somehow be poorer. Absent government interference the market for labor, goods, services, etc. would adjust and we would be wealthier, not poorer. Are we less wealthy for the inventions of electricity, automation of farming, the assemby line? No!!!
Milton Churchill
How will you acquire the energy and raw materials to run your robots, if you have nothing of value to trade?
No one can argue that the advancement of technology is inevitable, But I will continue to contend that its destructive nature is amplified by borrowed money that allows technology to be created without consideration to its impact on its customers. Debt currently defines ALL industries. If lending was eliminated or even tightened to 1960's standards our economy would collapse. This flooding of money into technology has allowed it to far outpace any societal means of balancing. People are being unemployed because of the deflationary impacts to their wages, that would not be tolerated unless easy credit and entitlement transfer payments were not masking and enabling it. It is the same for government policies of immigration and monopolization that are stripping away our economic base and replacing it with financial ones dependent upon speculation as a meaning of "earning" rather than productive means. This is not sustainable. Lowering cost for consumers is a positive thing until it eliminates all means of the purchase of those products and services other than debt. Debt that has no means of being repaid. It should be apparent that depending on debt for our sustenance is not sustainable and is in practice servitude of the worst kind.
It is obvious madness tome, but not so obvious to the economic geniuses dependent upon maintaining the current paradigm. Once we become dependent upon delusion as a basis for our economy, in a "belief" founded only on empty promised rather than fact and math, we have no choice but to double down. It is how all failing system collapse. Impose policies that destroy which have only one solution....MORE.
Wait what? Are we talking about automation in a sector that actually produces something fucking real or is this automation in the financial sector where all they do is create financial "products" of mass destruction.
Okay, sure, shut down the HFT bots and execute those asshats already. The sooner we do, the sooner we will recover.
Who let this assfuck back on ZH...?
Robot surgeons do surgeries better than human surgeons. Robot waiters and cooks will be able to get your order right and make far fewer mistakes than humans. Clothes, cars, houses. Everything, robots can or soon will be able to make cheaper, better, faster than humans. They can write articles and novels and poems, and do so with increasing quality.
The obvious solution to the automation problem, same as the oil problem, is a cartel, to fix price and supply. A global cartel, with the power to enforce quotas.
Internal sales and data imput has been completly made available by software.
And you hardly know when you're talking to a computer!!!!
I've had the demo's and believe me, they work 24/7, always right and always friendly and really fast!!
And they would cost me 125 euro's a month per unit.
And you'd think they're difficult to programm, but they're not!
This software is about to conquer the world in the next few years and they can replace about 2/3 of all desk jobs.
People should panick!
People should start their own bizz because all we'll need in the future are consultants.
In 10 years the Sex Robot will eliminate the need for a nagging wife or girlfriend. Don't panick ! ... rejoice !!
I'll take 2 Thai babes, the Finish blond and a Irish redhead please!
And 4 extra speedchargers for the batteries!
Your SexBot isn't complete without Vagi-Sol! Vagi-Sol is a PH neutral, sterilizing lubricant that keeps your SexBot running fresh and clean! "Vagi-Sol, does it all! You can feel serene, because it keeps her clean! No more dryness, from your Highness. Get the best, out lubes the rest, Vagi-Sol!
I think u r on to something here dude they need 20 million of these over in china for starters
Actually, I can't wait.
1/2 the worlds problems are being caused by ivory tower asshats who stare down at the great unwashed masses plotting how to run their lives for them, while believing they are completely above it all and untouchable.
I'ld pay to see krugmans face when he gets told hes being replaced by the HAL-ECON 9000
"We are summoning the Demon".......Musk on AI
The idea of automation was that it would free up human capital for more important tasks.
Innovation, ingenuity, and creativity would take us further than we could have imagined.
Alas, we have doumbed down and lowered the bar on human capital so far that we are now dumber than the machines.
Don't blame the machines.
Blame government.
Don't blame government, blame those that feed their children to the government-run education complex.
Most people put their children in a box that is run on a lowest common denominator basis.
You have to blame governement.
Individual rights have been destoyed and replaced by the greater good.
You cannot effectively work to change government at your school, local, state or national levels.
Courts have sold out the individual.
Parents are forced to put their kids in a box that is run on the lowest common denominator basis.
One can argue that they do not have to, and naybe they would not, if they were not forced to support those schools via taxes.
But they have no choice and are broke.
I don't know about not having the choice to do anything else, but it sure is easier to blame someone/something else, rather than take responsibility for one's own life.
People cheerfully trade their freedom every day for pleasure and distraction.
Postive thinking and a desire to take action do not automatically translate into practical solutions.
Difficult to jump off the treadmill and walk out of the camp when there's a gubmint agent standing by with a gun aimed at your head if you try.
The first step is realizing that you are dead either way.
So now they want to tax computers, big trucks, and farm equipment because they do work humans once did? Fucking retarded. This desire to be a dirt poor farmer is mind boggling. Life before machines fucking sucked.
I see everyone's favorite Luddite at OfTwoMinds has been allowed to touch a keyboard again... his entire premise is absurd and easily countered with real world observations...
why does CHS think the labor-saving from robots will change economics in way that is different than all the previous?
The Cotton Gin did not eliminate total jobs...just moved them from picking cotton to other things. Jobs are not a static pool, but a dynamic one.
Moreover, the fact that the inputs to cotton-made goods became cheaper meant that everyone became wealthier in terms of cotton-made goods.
No one has explained how robotics changes this dynamic. Robots are not synthetic life...not yet anyway, and maybe never.
Barring someone's intervention so long as there is someone willing to work, and someone with a need, there is a job to do.
"why does CHS think the labor-saving from robots will change economics in way that is different than all the previous?"
Agree with the point GCJ but I think this time it really is different. a third the population of the US is unemployed. They have been covering up the hard figures for too many years and now it's starting to catch up with them. And with us. If people want to work there are still jobs but not jobs that you would want to work at given the choice. There are only a few jobs that can't be replaced by an app or a robot and the only delay on using robots is that they actually incur an upfront cost.
I think you missed a valuable piece of history
american slave owning was not necessarily a path to riches and was on the wane UNTIL the cotton gin increased useable output by an order of magnitude. without the "gin" slaveholding may have continued to slowly transition into indentured servitude until finally fading away without a shot being fired.
I think you might want to pick a different example for your bright and glorious future.
It will just create a massive class system.
those who run the businesses and those who have nothing.
Those who run the businesses will find it funny and those at the bottom will grow hungry.
The Zombie apocalypse? Z for Z-Gen
The young kids today. They will be roaming the streets for something to eat something
And all the other generations who have some wealth to live from will have to protect themselves from them.
Every knows how the wealthy protect their wealth through violence.
If there are still corporations competing, maybe the kids can survive on ad revenues. Wear advertising on your body in the war for market share, get paid monthly by the corporations that sponser you.
You need to go to monster and type DIGITAL MARKETEER
It's all companies are interested in these days, they're throwing classic marketing overboard and going all in on online lead management.
A big faillure but it's cheaper then sending out sales reps to look for real clients.
People who own businesses were not (for the most part) gifted with it. They invested in themselves, in their own businesses to acquire equipment and the means of production. Unless people are willing to invest in themselves rather than to simply consume, they are destined to become debt slaves dependent upon business owners and given our current path, ultimately government.
In 25 words or less:
We are what we produce. If we produce nothing, we can trade for nothing. We have nothing.
Robots, it seems to me, just push everything to the "we produce nothing" part of the statement - except of course for those making the robots. Until the robots start making other robots.
Here is the future. A 1% that 'owns' all the assets of the world. Robot-driven farming, transportation, security. A 1st sub-class to maintain the robots (until robots can do that), provide personal security (until nanotech takes over that). A 2nd sub-class of whatever dregs remain of the 'something for nothing classes' that think the world owes them a living - as they scramble in abject poverty trying to grow things on the worst soil, and trying to avoid the security robots as they scramble for a living.
An interesting tipping point will be the stage at which it is too late for the 'everyone elses' of the world to pull down the immoral, unethical, inhuman thieves who 'own everything' and pay no taxes -or had an ancestor who did the dirty work for them.
It would seem obvious that while technology can be a lever to enable more efficient production, at some point it is not a labor enhancer but a labor replacer. It is replacing people. It is not creating new jobs that these former employees can work at. At best it is creating jobs for foreign workers on H1-b visas. As long as we pay people to stay home, pay people to do nothing, loan people money they can't earn, then the "system" stays afloat. Does anyone really think this is sustainable? Do we really think that technology will eventually provide us all a decent living whether we actually work or not. DO we really think that corporations are intent on providing us a easy living out of the goodness of their hearts? I sure wouldn't want to bet on it, and would be even less inclined to believe so if it was all owned by our government, who if put in charge of the desert would have a shortage of sand.
AUtomation just serves to commoditize what were formerly value-added products. This frees up labour to concentrate on building more advanced value-added products from a larger pool of commodities.
Except then the patent/copyright industry turns around and then creates monopolies from the limited pool of generally-useful "advanced value-added products" for those who had the money to get there first, leaving everyone else scraps at the margins.
"This frees up labour to concentrate on building more advanced value-added products from a larger pool of commodities." --
LMFAO!!! Then please explain all the fucking baby-mommas on SNAP that are consuming resources that we need to develop and build those "more advanced value-added products"...
I call bullshit.
Take away their welfare, and they'll start producing or live life freely on the street.
Welfare and automation have little to do with each other. The Romans had plenty of welfare, but almost no automation, unless you count the slaves (which you shouldn't, because that is far FAR less efficient than even the most primitive machines). It's just that increased productivity has allowed such consumption to continue and increase to a much greater scale than it did in earlier welfare based societies.
Once you have competent autonomous robots, you get an exponential bootstrapping process that leaves human labor in the dust, and provides so much abundance that your economic system simply ceases to matter. A robot that can build other (and better) robots is the seed for a robot army, and everyone can have one, just like everyone can have a smartphone today.
And sure, lots of people will be happy sitting around doing nothing, just as they were back in the Roman times eating bread and going to circuses. But as the generations pass, those "low class" people see others creating wonders, and find they can do it as well, and they will. Hell, they do it now, producing and posting their own videos online. As the tools and knowledge to make other things become more and more available, that creativity will spread to other domains.
but count slaves you must
they were the direct replacements for free independant citizens, who had to be placated by ever growing entitlement programs until it reached the point of unsustainable absurdity.
the efficiency of robots will only serve to make the process magnitudes faster and steeper.
"Welfare and automation have little to do with each other. The Romans had plenty of welfare, but almost no automation, unless you count the slaves "
You just argued against yourself. The Romans devalued labour by using slaves to do it. We davalue labour by having robots do it. The outcome is the same; lots of unemployed people, since working becomes less and less valuable.
Near-full automation in conjunction with near-free energy = a virtually post-scarcity society. You aren't poor; you're free to do whatever the fuck you want because you're post-fucking-scarcity. The captain wants to see you on the holodeck to show you how shitty and stupid a manual-labor manufacturing society is.
Where is this near-free energy going to come from? How will people acquire the raw commodities to make all their near-free stuff?
Big Brother is white knuckle scared of you now. Do you think hes just going to let you wonder around with all of that free time doing and THINKING anything you please? Oh, you will be free to do as you please......within the confines of your invisible 10 X 10 thought prison.
I'm sure the 1%ers will enjoy their holodeck privileges, long after they have wiped out the 99% who posed a threat to them and their utopia.
NWO. Know it. Fear it. Fight it.
Too many people, supply exceeds demand. If it applies to everything else then people (a flesh robot) should also be included in the market supply/demand mix.
I didn't know there was a lack of things to do in the world. I mean, you can wish away scarcity. But there's still a finite amount of stuff and capital.
The problem is when you can fool people into thinking there's an unlimited amount of capital with zero interest rates. Otherwise you could accurately depreciate and amortize capital investment versus just hiring people to do it.
EMP
Butlerian Jihad
Fight Club
Neo-Luddites
But what then?
Yet another tail wagging the dog perspective. As if the gains in production (due largely to innovation in "automation" like the introduction of the farm tractor) resulting in lowering the price to consumers and increasing the number of choices individuals can spend their resources on, isn't why we have the wealth of the modern world.
Maybe we'll all be richer and have a higher quality of life if we went back to the pre-industrial era manually working the fields and farming by hand. Maybe we should give up the 11-fold per-capita productivity increase that innovation has wrought over the last 200 years. Maybe we should go back to $3/day (in today's dollars) average income per person and send our children into the fields and sweat shops. Let's just roll it all back. At least we'll all be employed.
Article is ridiculous. Automatic elevators obviated the need for elevator attendants in the last century. Automatic manufacturing has lowered costs of goods so more people can afford them.
This article panders to the Luddites who can only imagine themselves as laborers their entire life.
Yes, althought it would appear that automation has created a fuckload more SNAP babies.
You really think that's sustainable? Good luck with that!
time to bring back sharecropping.
Thanks for responding. I would like to add that profits are destroyed by free competition. And this is good. There should be no profits.
"Profits" here refers to "economic profits" that are above fair compensation for a task. Economic profits are what is left over after you pay a fair wage to everyone. They get naturally destroyed by competition as they are what attracts more market entrants to compete for them.
Although to respond to you, I think that automation is a manufacturing technique that has made laborers more productive and it is not related to socialistic wealth redistribution. I think it is more fair to attribute increased socialism over time as the consequence of the "ratchet effect" of government
> There should be no profits.
>
> "Profits" here refers to "economic profits" that are
> above fair compensation for a task.
This assumes an objective theory of value and can have severe negative consequences (like, for example, full blown Socialism).
I respectfully recommend a couple short videos from Learn Liberty (below) and if you want more resources on a different way of looking at the role of profits (and prices), I'd be willing to make a suggestion or two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkPGfTEZ_r4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPDUMEQAIL0
My apologies if this seem rudimentary.
you missed the point. the classic theory of productivity said jobs replaced by productivity will be able to find jobs that productivity creates. as it turns out, productuivity eventually cannabalizes the labor force and produces a permanently unemployed class.
Bingo!
And on top of that, productivity is a self-reinforcing cycle...that MOST of us willing choose to pursue even in our daily lives.
Most of us would rather put the clothes in the washing machine than do them by hand...right?
What we are no doing in the mfgr realm is Automating previously Automated functions...its compounded to the point where at some stage, the very people who were buying stuff no longer have jobs...and Robots havnt started "Buying" stuff ....*Yet*.
Now...maybe thats just the natural course of all this...Robots buy stuff once us humans cant or wont any longer.
"...we'll look at the rising costs of human labor and explore why this trend will persist even as labor becomes increasingly surplus."
Preview: Because government and banks SAY IT MUST. Deflation is the natural state of an economy. Inflation is the natural state (i.e.; the only state in which they can survive) of bureaucrats and bankers. These groups have the POWER (the Fed is the nexus of both), therefore inflation will happen.
ron paul had the answer. fiat money allows .gov/oligarchs to print everyone's paycheck out of thin air. how else will they buy stuff made by the robots who took their jobs?
carbon invasion taxes still not noticed
The more without jobs the sooner we can get this shit on.
The problems of automation are nothing that WW III can't solve.
War is the answer.
The robots with all the jobs don't buy houses, cars or food. They don't patronize restaurants, and they don't take vacations in the Bahamas.
The market for manufactured goods will gradually fade away, lower prices being the only way to save it.
This might hurt corporate profits.
The idea that taxing the owners of robots and software will fund guaranteed incomes for all is not anchored in reality.
The heck it isn' reality. The only thing real in my career has been "increased taxation" resulting in "increased government". Government is not profitable ... but it is very very real.
When I started my career, 1/4th of my money went to government and 1/4th of the people were dependent on government. When my career ended, both those ratios were well over 1/2 and increasing geometrically.
We are obviously past the tipping point. Looks like acceleration to the inevitable collapse and reset is the only way out. Hopefully, we'll adopt a properly managed MOE then (which will make huge government impossible).
unfortunately, the elites plan for a reset also includes a big DELETE button for the majority of the worlds population.
Ha, ha. Any depopulation in the ranks of slaves without a depopulation in elites will result in a severely dysfunctional, useless society, where nothing is accomplished.
Which begs the question, who will design and service the automatons? Certainly not some newly educated "graduate" of higher learning.
Of course, with a smaller population, who will become the economic growth machine? Not slaves on minimum wages which are cut in half or more by a multitude of taxes?
Teach your children well the benefits of free markets so they will be ready for the Major Reset of humanity.
Having worked in the Machine Tool industry and manufacturing for 35 years, I have seen the growth in automation. It basically has done away with repetitive tasks, in a faster, more efficient and precise matter. Some mudane tasks are done at "light speed" now. Accuracy, repeatability and tolerances are almost as good as they are going to get.
The flip side of all this automation is that it still requires human input for it to function properly in the manner that was designed and engineered for. It needs to be maintained, serviced and replaced when it wears out. It doesn't function well in extreme environments, hot, wet, high load or large weight and or size.
Automation also is not justified in a low volume or "onesy, twosy", one off production.
Profit is still a relationship of scarcity, demand and supply. That's all, and good business sense not to produce, at cost or less than cost, simply to keep the doors open.
I design those Automated Machines.
I know that for every hour spend designing, making and servicing most Automated machines, that about 5 to 9 hours of labor is saved on a perpetual basis. The time and money to make these automated equipment is a fraction of the labor it replces. 1 person will now do the work of 5 to 10 ppl, and the time spent making and serviced the equipment has dropped by 75-80% over the past few years.
Its just the way it is...those 9 hours are now gone and not available for people looking for jobs. Its GONE forever...and there is no other industry for which to go look for replacement work becasue we have Automated EVERY industry.
So...now its bottom feeding for 50% of the popluation. like it or not, its the way it is. Most of the people "replaced" by automated tasks, will either find part-time work, or none at all.
First off, lack of scarcity decreases cost of consumption in direct proportion to how much it decreases profitability of production. Machines will stop producing profits only at such a time as people stopping paying for their labor.
Second off, automation can only lower the cost of labor to zero. Basic goods will remain scarce. As such, the tax and redistribute regime becomes much easier, not harder. In other words, regardless of what technology we produce, metal, sunlight, etc... will still be valuable, and anyone with an army can rent out the related "resource nodes" under their control for a profit.
You simply CANNOT compare the late 1800's Early 20th Century industrial revolution involving Engines and Farming Automation to todays Automation.
First off, all those Engines were made using ther same labor that left the fields, and the Engine then allowed faster commerce and national then world-wide trade.
We also dont really need to increase quality much further...we make sub-micron "wires" on circuit boards that run at Billons of cycles per second...the only people who need faster is Military and bulk/mass providers...but wait - they already have that too...we all simply dont need a super computer in our house...and that why PC's have pretty much been stuck at the same speed (more or less) for the past 10 years...no need for ever doubling the speed...
Bascially We are already "There" - Faster transport at this stage wont really increase trade, thus we are no longer looking at Automation as a way to INCREASE crops, or to really Speed up our daily lives, we dont need that...No, rather the absolute Converse is now the case with Automation - and that is one thing and one thing only: Attempt to SAVE money by reducing labor.
Nothing more nothing less - Except this time we literally are Eliminating jobs. I know first hand, and I know several Mechanical and Industrial Engineers whos sole purpose is taking 10 hands-on jobs, and turning it into a 1-person station. The amount of labor to build the automated station is roughly 25% of the labor replacing rhe 10 ppl the first year, and then 1/10th the remaining 3-5 year life-span.
Same problem with telling everyone that they need a Bachelors degree...haha...once eveyrone has one, nobody really has one.
Interesting times. I dont envy anyone under the age of 30 these days.
Now...continue buyin stuff from Walmart, and such...but thats another story al together.
The base question in all this is: if we're heading toward a robotic revolution, what can humans do to add value and therefore earn "money" in order to buy the things that are produced?
The people who run the central banks and all the banking apperatus believe that humans are not necessary anymore. All they need is robots to enjoy the fruits of the Earth for themselves. Just read the UN agendas.
So what's the answer? Regular people can once again grow crops to feed themselves, but what else? I don't know. A second tier economy where humans trade amongst themselves? Doesn't sound very promising. What else?
The people who run the central banks and all the banking apperatus believe that humans are not necessary anymore. All they need is robots to enjoy the fruits of the Earth for themselves. Just read the UN agendas.
A small serf population, probably about 5 million worldwide, is just enough to provide worshippers. After all, you aren't a GOD if nobody worships you, right? Plus, having wenches around for the raping and so forth. Can't rape another GOD, after all.
But essentially, you are correct.
The author of this article must be a special kind of idiot to be complaining about reduced prices for consumers.
Don't worry guys. The .00001% have the solution. Get rid of the People. Install AI into robots. BS robots that spending is good, robots create new economy. Profits sore???
How we deal with this or dont is the question of the century? Its a problem that no one wants to talk about and the people who own robots are giddy? Ill never understand this one. People should watch out.
People dont realize robots taking over 80% of the jobs probably means theirs too. There is a disconnect from the reality of the situation, yet again.
Why would any society, in their right minds, head in this direction? Because the few who will benefit control everything and so Insanity Rules. In order to have a market you need a consumer and robots eliminate the job/consumer? It does not work. How are they going to keep their consumers "alive"?
"In order to have a market you need a consumer and robots eliminate the job/consumer? "
Why do you need a market? If you have all you need provided from land and robots you own, why do you need to trade with anyone else? Of course, this will only apply to the wealthy.
You some how need to obtain the robots? maintain the robots? They need parts that they may or may not be able to make? you still need power sources? you need to service robots such as technical robots, the economy still exists, but not much of it? If we are dependant, we will need an economy. I dont think its possible for them to go dig the silver they need for certain things, catch my drift? I dont think they will be able to print things like silver for quite some time still and or food that you would want to eat.
The common man will be screwed. Imagine you are the head of a large family, part of a group of families, that has $100 billion and a million acres of land. You buy the robots that can make and repair new robots, extract, refine and recycle raw materials, and harvest energy. What do youi need trade for? What do you need commoners for?
Seems like a pretty different way to look at the future. Every man for themselves because a few at the top think its a good idea? People get bored? They like to do things, gamble, watch sports, do something entertaining especially if there is no work to do? The problem with that scenario is there has to be a collapse at some point? So if a few are all set at the point of the collapse maybe? Now I understand why everyone is in such a rush? The problem is there is no turning back, so at the point there is no market to turn to the 100 billion will be worthless and if you have an issue your fucked? Not so sure its as easy as you make it sound although probably could be possible. I dont think so yet though. Thats why the people / the population should be very careful about the people who would really do that....they are in control and have this mentality, so probably not that far fetched. How do you think this situation could transpire peacefully? That this could just happen with out consequences for most. I dont care where you hide its not going to be good? I just dont see it working out well.
Are you the type of person who would never want to go out to a nice "new" resturant and enjoy a diner cooked by an non-robitic chef? You seem to be talking about a pretty dim colorless world? No TV shows, No internet? Not much of any kind of life except nothing to do? Meeting a new person would be quite an event? Im starting to get why so many people would rather be dead.
Addiction to vapid entertainments is a frivolous way to waste your life. There is a lot of satisfaction for the non-ADHD population in simply producing one's needs and enjoying the harvest. Most restaurants are pretty pathetic if you actually know how to cook. TV shows? Gawds, what a total waste. I admit I like the internet for conversations since I live totally alone in a countryside with few intellectual peers. But there ARE a couple of guys down the road worth talking to, and if I kept the phone I could still call a few others. Meeting a new person SHOULD be an event. Having to deal with hundreds in one day is an ordeal.
Dim and colorless? Hardly. "In every wood, in every spring, there is a different shade of green . . ." actually, at least 50 shades. And the autumn colors during the last month have been splendid. Why, I could make a dozen colors of dye just out of one summer's crop of woad. And the shades of the sunset outside my window facing west! The red ball of the sun rising in the dawn! The blue sky of a clear day! The gorgeous textures of cloud in a storm! Not to mention the music of the rain dripping off my eaves tonight, or the crickets chirping last week. The flashing lights of the city as I fight to stay alive in rush-hour traffic are hardly an inducement. Please, stay where you are comfortable. I certainly don't want my country lane to get any more crowded. We already had a half-dozen new neighbors move into the vacant house a quarter mile down the road this year.
I must admit, I am a bit of a loaner. I like to be alone, I hate TV except news, I love the internet for its endless knowledge... I can ask any question and most times get an answer, I suppose a robot could do it, but not as much fun as looking stuff up. Im pretty self sufficient so I would do well in the described situation. Ive live on Mt Washington for a week in the middle of the winter so I can survive just about anywhere. I live in a rural area and I like it. There would be many trade offs. I would miss going to a new restaurant every once in a great while, I dont drink, I would grow my weed and go fishing, hiking, I just dont have the 100 billion and a million acres, although I do have 5.5 beautiful acres so who knows really? You would have to have quite a library. I dont know, it really doesn’t fit evolution? or its a very weird form of it? The collapse will be the "thing" to make it through, all bitching aside, not sure how they will ever unwind what the fed has done, so none of it can be certain.
If we take NASA public and allow massive investments in space exploration and business, we can easily take up the slack.
If NASA were allowed to raise $400 Billion over the next 20-30 years it would produce 2 million very high tech jobs, pay off the national debt with the 20% of the shares the government gets to keep and change society and the nature of economic expansion forever.
Mining asteroids alone would pay of the National Debt in less than 20 years. However, the problem comes not in doing the task but in being the secong group to get there. The first group makes all the money while the second group makes nothing because the gold, platinum and precious metals will be virtually worthless by the time the second groups gets there because there will be so much available. For all the gold bugs of the world, imagine going back to using gold as a currency again with a one once coin in fact worth just $10 and not the $1088 it is worth today.
For those greenies, imagine a world where 75% is given back to the wild and very little or no pollution or stress on resources.
For employment, space is never ending. It will allow us to expand as long as we can survive.
For employment, space is never ending. It will allow us to expand as long as we can survive.
You made some great points in your post. Space exploration/exploitation is truly the solution to a lot of man-kind's problems. Particularly when new technologies for exploring space, such as the new "EM Drive" are considered. The EM Drive will reduce the time of space travel like the airliner did versus traveling by rail or ship. The time to travel to the Moon will be reduced to a few hours and to Mars or the asteroid belt down to weeks. It's only when this happens will humans see the true benefits of space.
Space is really the only hope. It could make the metals almost infinite which is pretty wild. WTF else are we going to do twitle our thumbs?
Space as a solution to the limits of an earth-bound economy is a delusion. You are ignoring two major problems for which NASA has NO solution in sight (I have this on direct personal information from the Project Manager):
1) the Gravity Well
2) hard radiation that will fry any human who stays outside the atmosphere for more than a month or two.
Sorry, boys. We aren't going to be able to run away from this one. It's learn to live with ourselves, or DIE.
Yes, but I dont worry if the robot who is cooking my burger washed his hands after visiting the restroom...
So many fallacies.
This author's thinking has fallen victim to his own hyperbole. End the FED. End the State.
With Bitcoin we destroy the jobs at the Central Banks all around the world.
The Horror, The Horror!!!
What people miss is as the costs of producing commodities fall, people costs of living fall.
When people do homeshooloing,t he cost of a pupil fall from 10-15-20K USD to 500$ per year.
This is 10-15-20K$ / pupil left in the pocket of taxpayers.
A lot of teachers lose their jobs, a lot of janitors lose their jobs.
Not a big loss, the majority of them are loose teachers and janitors.
They will find other jobs, maybe.
Robotize and commotidize housing construction, then the housing bubble will go away (unless the politicians impose artificial scarcity).
People will be able to afford a good home.
The ability to build better houses would reduce the health bill a lot.
And so on.
"When people do homeshooloing,t he cost of a pupil fall from 10-15-20K USD to 500$ per year."
Are you talking about children or university students?
For children, this is assuming that the parent's time is worth $0. For the university student, this is assuming that learning on the Internet has the same value as an actual university education.
" learning on the Internet has the same value as an actual university education. "
which, for many university and most classes (humanities in particular), is actually true.
The flaw in this article is that the assumption that a higher productivity is bad for the economy is being made.
The only thing which is dynamic are the business models.
With free software for all, profits to be make just shift and find a place elsewhere in the production line.
The producer then should ask himself. how can i create added value, how can i make a difference so that my products are being bought.
Basically this problem has nothing to do with 'ínnovation' but with added value.
One just have to find new ways to raison d'etre.
AND
The cost of transportation from workplace to customer is extreemly low.
Shipping from China to Rotterdam is the same as Maastricht - Rotterdam (200Km).
So maastricht labor to produce products for Rotterdam customers compete with workers in China.
"how can i make a difference so that my products are being bought"
true, however, the deeper problem should be, who will buy my products if people have no money and the % of people who have money, which means of potential consumers, is ever reduced?
It's not a hypotetical future question, that's already now. Arguably, there was never a recovery from teh last crisis because people never got the money back to start the demand side of the supply/demand cycle. Higher mechanization will mean less jobs, or at least less jobs giving enough surplus to allow buying non primary needs goods, which are the ones that make economies run.
Inequality is not (only) a moral matter, it's also a economics problem. It was one of teh finest examples of capitalists that allegedly aid "I pay my workers a lot so they can buy my cars".
Well people do have money. And the amount of money circulating doesn't decrease.
But if people are very impoverished, the producer has to develope products which will be bought even by the poor.
markets must follow the customer or die.
Thats very democratic.
Inequality is a natural phenomenon. Has nothing to do with justice. People do differ.
inequality is not an economic problem. If there is freedom and everybody has the same rights then inequality is no economic problem.
Everybody can enjoy the good things of the market.
And sure a rich man has a better life than a poor man. But the poor are being helped by the rich via the free markets.
Some low class people today have better living conditions than middle class a century ago!
Even kings couldn't be helped with heartsurgery a century ago.
inequality is not an economic problem. If there is freedom and everybody has the same rights then inequality is no economic problem.
What happens at the limit where everything is automated and nobody works?
The only reason why we are in dire straits is because of governments manipulate economies.
So get rid of central banks and get rid of government monopoly on money.
Did you ever wondered why rich people use the same money as the poor ones?, why didn't they just get rid of all the useless eaters, socialist waste of resources and get away with their own system?
Because what gives money it's value is the sacrifice those who want it are willing to do.
The economy is not about money, is about the measure of power some humans have above others.
Sorry, no robots in this equation...
Evaluate the problem at the limits:
Limit A: No automation. Everyone works to shelter and feed themselves or they expire.
Limit B: Full automation. No one works.
What economic system do you employ at limit B?
What happens as we approach limit B? Those who work to foster automation are well rewarded. Those who don't expire. The closer you approach limit B, the more people have expired and the fewer people continue to foster automation. What happens when the next to last person expires?