One of the reasons the future seems worse in many sci fi stories is that the genre is often a vehicle for social commentary on current trends in society and technology. Frequently a writer will take one aspect of a technology and exaggerate the effects in the future to inject this kind of commentary (e.g. the film ‘Wall E’ is a very blatant example of this, it’s often a bit more subtle)
Ubiquitous automation that results in a lack of overall scarcity while at the same time eliminating a majority of jobs would certainly put conservative values and policies to the test, no?
These discussions, which are generally pretty interesting to me, always make me think of Vonnegut’s Player Piano. What were his Joe Schmoes called, the Reeks and the Recs (Reconstruction and Reclamation, iirc)?
I would say wrt economic socialism my WAG would be less than 10%. The US certainly has some economic socialism, but not a lot of it. Other aspects of socialism that aren’t economic (such as welfare programs, government assistance, social security and the like) we also have a lower bar than most of those other countries, but we DO have a bar. Most wealthy and prosperous countries today use capitalism as the main part of their economic system (China being one of the exceptions), but most also use other aspects of socialism to soften capitalism (China, again, being kind of an exception, ironically), including the US. Often we fight on this board about where the bar should be set, but almost no one argues that we shouldn’t have a bar at all, nor is it likely that even if the most rabid libertarian came to power that the bar would be completely removed, even in the US.
The standard definition of economic socialism is this “A socialist economic system is characterised by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use.” Basically, yes, economic socialism is where the state owns the means of production and directly controls their markets in a command economy. There is also political socialism, and then there are socialist programs or aspects. To me, most modern, prosperous nations use the later while mainly avoiding the economic and most of the political aspects of socialism. I think that most US ‘socialist’ in fact really want socialist PROGRAMS (state sponsored college, single payer UHC, etc) paid for by a capitalist economy that is highly regulated by the state. Today, a mixed economy and political system is really the norm, where nations have taken what their people think of as the best aspects FOR THEM, mixed them together and use that as their system.
I don’t think there are, currently, any 100% socialist countries. I certainly can’t think of any. Nearly all of them (even the old Soviet Union) used some aspects of capitalism bolted on just to make them work. Today’s socialist/communist countries do as well, even North Korea, which is probably the most extreme example. The trouble is that a lot of the bolt on stuff is just incomparable with the core socialist aspects, and they come into conflict, which has to be managed and addressed from the top down…which doesn’t always work out very well (in never works out optimally even when it is made to work). Think Venezuela as an example where it’s coming apart and China as an example where the CCP has been able to kick the can down the road and make it sort of work, but that the pressure is building wrt conflicts and issues and it might, someday, come to a head.
Well, a couple of things. First, if we aren’t talking about full automation with AI running stuff and able to basically build anything, automatically, you are still going to need humans in the loop. Also, just because there aren’t any manufacturing jobs, or that this is a dying industry doesn’t mean there aren’t any jobs…or won’t be down the line. Personally, I think that a ‘job’ in the future might be something like playing a game, or playing IN a game, or some other type of entertainment or content creation. Basically, it will be something we can’t even really grasp today or think of as a ‘real’ job. That has been the trend for centuries now. We don’t have massive unemployment despite whole sectors of the economy basically being wiped out by new technology because those new technologies launched whole new sectors and jobs people in the past wouldn’t or couldn’t have predicted.
However, at some point I think the idea that we HAVE to have a ‘job’ is going to become obsolete. Probably not in my (or your) lifetime, but I think that time is coming. Eventually, I think that something like a BLS will become reality, as AI and automatic manufacturing take over, as well as once we gain access to the vast resources in our solar system. Population growth is already leveling out, and by the late 2030’s it should start to decline until we reach a balance point. Prosperity is already rising world wide, and I expect that trend to continue (assume global warming doesn’t bite us all in the ass), and I think humanity is on the cusp of another great leap upward.
Well, people have been told by both sides that outsourcing and offshoring is and has been the problems, that those dirty ferriners have taken our jobs! Because the realities are harder for people to grasp, and, more importantly, harder for politicians to work the voters up over and seem to do something about. Illegal immigration isn’t actually a major issue in the US…in fact, it’s a missed opportunity. We COULD be doing what China is doing, which is heavily invest our own manufacturing in the nations to our south where wages are lower and so are costs. That’s what China is doing…as their own labor market shifts and becomes more expensive they have started to shift manufacturing to places like Vietnam and South East Asia. We could do that. For a while, anyway. Eventually, even this is a losing proposition, as eventually automation is going to remove the vast majority of those jobs, and those jobs aren’t coming back any more than switch board operators or buggy whip makers.
XT, I’m updating my opinion of you after this post. I saw some patterns in previous posts and assumed you were far less knowledgeable than you actually are. (certain posters seem to come on these boards, parrot conservative talking points, and sort of ignore any criticism)
Regarding “other jobs” : maybe. Even if making things, and getting the materials to make things, and recycling things, and moving things, and generating the power to make things, and swapping things (automated maintenance would obviously be primarily swapping subsystems), are all automated, there are other problems we could then devote human resources to.
Notably, as you have mentioned, we don’t have human resources really invested into large scale space exploration/exploitation. Another domain is medical/bioscience research - through very, very, very large scale efforts - I could probably write a lot on this subject but I’d need to do some research, maybe a thesis on it - I think you could ultimately get a handle on controlling biology reasonably reliably.
That is, the big prize on this would be methods to reverse and then prevent human aging and of course all human disease.
But there are major problems with this. Might make for a good sci-fi novel.
a. The way this bioscience research and ultimately development of "panacea" like cures would be performed is done autonomously at industrial scales. It would not necessarily require an international effort or corporation between multiple institutions - a large and power corporation could do it, or a state backed entity.
b. The development would be exponential - over a couple of decades, the mostly automated model might go from simply replicating basic knowledge of cellular biology in bacteria to entire mockups* of human beings (with incomplete brains) being treated for rare diseases.
*like the electronics mockup for an aircraft or car - its all of the components but spread farther apart and interconnected by tubing.
c. Vested interests in first world countries might delay treatments for aging and all the ways it causes death, making it effectively illegal for their citizens for years, even decades as “clinical trials” are required. These trials would be unnecessary as at this level of understanding, anything that goes wrong can be corrected and in any case, “treatment” is per individual and there is nothing to test on a large scale trial. But some of the early “beta” patients would die, justifying support for the policy.
d. For this kind of bioscience research, many of the higher levels of integration needed would include human embryos, lobes of living human brains, countless genetically edited cellular tissue samples - all sorts of things that might lead to protests and banning in some legal jurisdictions.
Actually, I’d use that episode more as an example of the other great task of Science Fiction- through the use of fantastic technology or settings, to reflect today’s world back at us in some way.
After all, isn’t that implant and its implications just sort of today’s social media/internet presence writ extremely large?
True, but the definition of Socialism isn’t “Command Economy”, it’s worker ownership of the ill-defined notion of Means Of Production. If you have private industry, owned by individual investors and managed by CEOs and boards, that isn’t Socialism.
“20% Socialism” is nonsense. It doesn’t work like that. Socialism is a revolutionary ideology entirely predicated on destroying a previous order, so you can no more be partially Socialist than you can be partially completely destroyed.
Eh, what? Ok, here’s my rabble raising scheme. On death, anyone above a certain level of assets forfeits 90 percent of the excess (about 10 million USD in inflation adjusted dollars) to the government.
The government maintains a sovereign wealth fund with the assets and uses this to fund college, healthcare, and welfare for all citizens. Basically a trust fund for everyone instead of just a few.
So… double the existing estate tax percentage AND the eligibility threshold? (it’s currently 40%, and if you make more than somewhere between 5 and 6 million).
How about making it progressive instead? Like if you make under 5 million, you don’t get taxed, but above that, it’s based on some kind of formula- maybe a logarithmic function scaled such that it approaches 98%, or something like that. That way, it would grow fast, then taper off as people’s wealth increased, but it wouldn’t necessarily overly penalize the people with 6 million or so.
Key thing is this tax would require changes to the laws that allow for trust funds and other off the books assets. Also they would apply to both all us citizens and all assets existing inside the USA. (Semi retroactive, and if an owner doesn’t present themselves in some amount of time equal to about half a lifetime the government takes it. So if say an anonymous Russian owns a building in NYC they have to register a person presently living who was alive when the law was passed before the deadline as the owner. And once that person dies or is uploaded to a computer they forfeit most of the asset value. )
This would make trillions apply to it and would ultimately give the government access to the entire asset value of the usa itself, minus small stakeholders. (The value of all land, all buildings, and all IP registered or created by Americans)
But sure, making it grow smoothly is fine. My point is this scheme, which would be a “patch” to make capitalism fair so that essentially all Americans get a similar start in life (still disparities but less) and any billionaires had to have earned it via their own personal efforts, not their ancestors.
Also this pays the national debt off - the national debt I feel is just a form of tax evasion.
Anyways a conservative would call this scheme “socialism”. Is it?