Go back a bit to I think one of lezler’s posts, where she combined your name and mine in boldface with no punctuation, creating “Jonathan evil”. In short, it was her idea. For the record, I don’t think you’re evil, I just think you’re wrong.
**Question, EC:
- How, if no one had to work, would services get performed?**
You guys are taking bits of what I’ve said and built a vision of a socialist paradise from them which I do not happen to share. I’m not saying this is the way it’s going to be because we’re going to adopt this marvelous new plan for society. I’m saying this is the way technology is headed. How will we cope with it? I’m not sure. I can see this society coming about entirely through capitalism, to tell you the truth.
What makes you so sure that the trend toward increasing automation in the production of essential goods and services is going to stop at some marvellously convenient point that will keep everyone employed? What makes that such a whacky assumption?
What people need to survive are food, shelter and clothing. They want more, of course, but that’s what they need. All of these things are increasingly provided by automated industries whose workers are a tiny fraction of the workforce. The exception would be shelter, but I expect that’ll get automated sooner or later, too.
If everyone were guaranteed food, shelter and clothing for life – albeit, plain food, Spartan shleter and inexpensive clothing – I think most people would STILL work for a living. They’d want goods and services beyond the bare minimum, if only to assuage their egos. But they wouldn’t be under duress. They would be making a choice. And that makes ALL the difference. (I’m sure some people, given the opportunity to survive at a subsistence level and no more without working, would choose not to work. But I don’t think it would be a significant portion of the population. People liek their bling-bling and their ego boo. Naturally employer-employee relations will change under those circumstances, which I think will be a fine thing all round.)
I’m sure there will always be SOME need for employment that isn’t voluntary, work that has to be done if things are to proceed, but I suspect that will eventually amount to some small fraction of the available workforce, who might work at it 5 years before going on to some more voluntary work.
- How, if no one had to work, would basic needs be met?
OK, back in the ancient world if you were a rich dude and you wanted to stay that way, you hired a bunch of slaves and they farmed or made clothing or armor or mined or whatever the hell. Over the course of human history, this has been the way things happened, even though the workers weren’t always called slaves, right up until the industrial age. The industrial age created the option of using machines to replace hand labor. This temporarily created enormous human suffering, but then, the widespread slavery that preceded it was no picnic, either. Adjustments were made in how poeple lived and they’re still being made, because we’re not at the end of the process started by the industrial age yet.
We’re close now to the point where factories will be almost entirely automated. Essentially if you’re a rich dude and you want to get richer by making blivets, you’ll use some of your capital to buy an automated factory that has maybe three engineers as employees. You’ll buy trainloads of blivetium and crapolaite from other rich dudes who own automated mining and processing faciltiies. The result will be a huge supply of blivets produced by very few actual human beings. These blivets will the be able to be made cheaply and spew onto the marketplace.
For the blivets, subsutitute utensils, lamps, furniture, golden snackos, whatever. Eventually – maybe 50 years down the road – virtually all manufacturing will work like this. And the only people who will make money producing this cornucopia of goods and supplies will be rich dudes and their very few employees.
What will everyone else do to make money to buy this stuff? Will the service sector become 9/10 of the economy? Will that make economic sense?
Eventually (actually pretty quickly) the capitalists will tumble to the fact that they need people to have money in order to buy their blivets – Henry Ford tumbled to that one a long time ago. And ways will be found to make it possible for most folks to buy blivets, and convince them that they desperately need to buy blivets.
I think this is what is happening gradually right now. So, at what point do we call a spade a spade and admit that most folks don’t need to be working to have what they need to survive? The heated emotions that these points arouse in conservatives makes me think they hope the answer to that question is “never.” Certainly not now, or any time close to it.
3) What accounting system would society use if not some sort of valuation called money?
Details, details. I doubt we’ll switch over from money, there’ll just be a different logic behind how it is obtained.
**Seriously, you’re not even laying out a thesis for us to respond to. Calm down and lay out what changes you would make that would lead to your ideal world. Hell, even tell us what your ideal world would be. Then we can discuss. **
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I’m not upset. I’m calling you names because you’re calling me names. You are under no obligation to respect me or my ideas, but I’m under no obligation to respect you or yours. You want me to stop with the snarkin’, you know what to do.
