I've recently been watching those "how they're made" shows on the Science channel, and it's truly amazing to me the complex machinery and processes they use to mass produce many of those items, with such little human interaction. 100 years ago, it would have taken hundreds or thousands of people to do what those machines do, and maybe a dozen human operators.

So, as we advance technologically, and machines start to take over more and more industries (if AI ever comes, it could really put a lot of people out of jobs), where are people suppose to work? At a perfect level of technological saturation of job fields (hundreds of years, at least, away), it would leave a lot of unskilled, and some skilled, laborers out of work. The current model of capitalism pushed by many conservatives suggest that these people get a job, any job, but it's possible that there would be no jobs, or at least no jobs that pay anywhere near well enough. If we left it up to corporations, they wouldn't care about people, as long as they were making their product as efficiently as possible (with the robots), and selling them for good profits. Either the gov. would truly have to engage in a communist-level of redistribution, people will starve to death (thinning the population), or there is some variable I am missing (which is where you all come in).

Further, tech. clearly has reduced the market for unskilled labor, and it seems in the FDR era, the industrial/economic systems were restructured to accommodate for this (permanent, progressive taxes). Will the progressive tax continue to progress with technology?

10/9/2005 6:19:43 PM

The more people who go out of a job, the less demand there is for those products. This doesn't contradict anything you said, but wasn't quite expressed. The thinning of the population part, in particular, works with that. The industral machine makes a few people very rich at the same time as putting people out of work. So if the elite class could somehow be big enough consumers themselves to fill in the void of billions of ordinary people... well i don't know.

10/9/2005 6:27:16 PM

The loss of jobs is temporary.

The creation of wealth is perminent.

10/9/2005 6:37:35 PM

moron, and human history up until this point just doesn't sway you? We have 300 years of history to demonstrate that job destruction breeds job creation.

A worker's salary is determined by his productivity, quantity of jobs is determined by the quantity of job seekers.

If there are more people than jobs then wages will fall which will produce more jobs (employers will reduce capital intensity to increase profits by employing more workers at the new lower wages).

Therefore: wages, employment, and productivity all play off each other. A sudden influx of workers will reduce wages, inducing a reduction in productivity, thus restoring employment equalibrium.

As such, the US unemployment rate currently sits at 5.1%, this is an historically low value. If future technological advancement is going to increase unemployment then why has not past technological advancement done so?

10/9/2005 6:46:19 PM

^^^ The most amazing process I have seen so far is how the manufacture pantyhose. That's a simple textile product that many people will buy, regardless. If you look at something like clothing, people would need that whether they have a job or not. I can see what you are saying about the demand, but that would mostly apply to luxury items, that only a small percentage of people buy anyway.

[Edited on October 9, 2005 at 6:49 PM. Reason : j]

10/9/2005 6:49:26 PM

^^ I'm not really arguing employment, as much as quality of wages.

You are correct that there isn't massive unemployment, but recently, the gulf between the rich and poor has been growing (IIRC, it was massive before the great depression, dropped in the decades afterwards, then has started growing again).

But, history doesn't necessarily go against what i'm saying, I don't think. The industrial revolution did cause significant shifts in society, from where people lived, to how we eat. Society is getting pretty "stuffed" as it is, and as the population grows, and more places become urbanized, it makes us (society) less versatile, to handle significant changes.

Also, what you are describing is a perfect capitalist system, and your system also necessitates class gradations (it requires there to be some suffering, helpless, needy people). We create technology to ultimately make our lives easier and more luxurious, and it works well (washing machines, microwaves, dishwashers, cars, etc). It seems that promoting a system that is almost defeating of this goal, and that promotes the misery of a significant group of people is somewhat barbaric. Communism is too extreme (the pitfalls of which are well known), but it seems that capitalism is also extreme as well. I think considering the changes technology will cause, it makes more sense to actively pursue a form of capitalism that is more flexible, that can ultimately result in the success of most of the people, that doesn't require a class of people to be suffering (something more socialist).

10/9/2005 7:02:38 PM

alot of sociologists think so, but that really doesnt say that much. they oversimplify the process, just as economists simplify societie's issues into strictly issues of the market and the consumer.

10/9/2005 7:25:51 PM

we could always get jobs cleaning the robots that clean the robots.

10/9/2005 7:39:13 PM

^lol, someone must have been there to see me argue with Marshall Brain 2 years ago

10/9/2005 7:51:42 PM

Quote :

"I think considering the changes technology will cause, it makes more sense to actively pursue a form of capitalism that is more flexible, that can ultimately result in the success of most of the people, that doesn't require a class of people to be suffering (something more socialist)."

And what form would that be? Unless you havn't noticed, the more socialist a country is nowadays the higher the structural unemployment (the unemployment that no amount of economic growth can eliminate). The unemployment rates of Europe are good examples, France is 10.1%, Germany is 10.6%, etc. etc.

The fact is, the more control government has over the economy the LESS capable it is to respond to technological change. In this decade we have new technology coming out of our ears, yet the more socialist states of Europe occasionally have stagnant productivity growth. Meanwhile, America, the free of the free, is pushing technology to the limits of human benefit. Wages are growing fast, employment is increasing, etc.

It has been argued that what is holding our poor down is socialism. By putting in place a minimum wage you are rendering the unskilled unemployable and thus incapable of building a life for themselves. We have low wage labor available here in America. They would happily go to work in a sweat-shop. But because of the various regulations on labor, it would be illegal for them to do so. As such, they have no hope but welfare and government hand-outs.

In the show you are watching (I love it too, it's called "How things are made" and it comes to us from Canada) those machines cost a fortune. Some of those tasks could have been done by unskilled labor, but regulations have priced them out of the market because there are no regulations on robot labor, only human labor.

In a changing world you need an economy that can adapt to changing conditions.

In a socialist system, wages are regulated and thus cannot fall, so when uncertainty hits employment must fall to maintain profitability. The few (now unemployed) are sacrificed to maintain continued high wages of the many. In instances where productivity cannot match the labor available, it is a deadweight loss (This factory cannot operate without x employees and I can only afford x - 1 employees at the mandated wage, so we close and everyone goes unemployed). When business oportunities exist firms are hesitant to invest because employees are permanent and costly.

In a market system, wages are fluid and can be renegotiated, it is employment which is fixed (anyone unemployed will simply bid a lower wage to gain employment). The living standards of the many are thus fluid, falling with recessions and rising with recoveries, but abject unemployment is rare because you can always take a temporarily lower wage until economic conditions improve. When business oportunities exist firms are eager to invest because employees are readily available (just pay slightly higher wages) and can be cheaply released if market conditions change.

10/9/2005 8:17:49 PM

Quote :

"If you look at something like clothing, people would need that whether they have a job or not. I can see what you are saying about the demand, but that would mostly apply to luxury items, that only a small percentage of people buy anyway."

I see this delma as a serious problem for the proposed future. Lets say a new radical advancement in machinery outpriced every human job in the entire labor force. Unless the composition of humanity changed (number of people, need for food, wants of the pople), what you must to produce as a society doesn't change much.

In terms of the masses, over the years we up our consumption which balances things out with greater production capacity. If your production capacity goes up and consumption doesn't go up, what gives? People work less? Less people work?

10/9/2005 8:30:09 PM

Quote :

"In terms of the masses, over the years we up our consumption which balances things out with greater production capacity. If your production capacity goes up and consumption doesn't go up, what gives? People work less? Less people work?"

Well, lets check the history. In the past 30 years the amount of labor (in hours) to feed clothe and house an American has fallen by half. Are half of us unemployed today? Today about 12% of Americans produce everything 100% of us use. Fifty years ago it took over 50% of the labor force to perform the same feat.

What did the rest of us find jobs doing? Health-care, writting software, computers, education, finance, telecomunications, entertainment, dentistry, pharmacuticals, etc.

If we eliminated all human labor in the making of stuff, we'd only need to find jobs for 12% of us. A small price to pay to make food, shelter, and comfort free to all.

You see, not only wages are pegged to productivity, but prices are too. If it took no labor whatsoever to flood the market with goods, then prices would be free. Of course, it is impossible to eliminate humans from the production chain, even if all the human brought to the endeavor was capital, so it would be impossible to have free stuff.

So, whenever you think of a human free factory a human free farm, and a human free mine, you must also think of 9 cents per loaf for bread at the food lion and $6 DVD players at Best Buy.

10/9/2005 8:50:58 PM

Quote :

"We have 300 years of history to demonstrate that job destruction breeds job creation."

thats the main point here, moron, and LS kind of hit upon it in his last post. When jobs die, new jobs open up. For instance, look at the makeup of the workplace today: We have TONS of small businesses specializing in selling certain items or specializing in service jobs (pet day care, dog walking, lawn mowing, etc), whereas we didn't really have that twenty years ago. We had manufacturing jobs out the wazoo twenty years ago. I think there will always have to be people to sell things (not cashiers, but actual salesmen), I don't think that robots will ever take over that job. Its also unlikely that robots will ever take over healthcare. Finally, robots will likely never take over the more pleasurable activities, such as art and music. Basically, when one job disappears, people will find new jobs that other people desire to be fulfilled. The only way that this would not occur is in the utopian dream where no one needs to work, and there is no money and all we have to do is press some button and whatever we want is created for us right in front of us. But, thats utopia...

10/9/2005 9:18:36 PM

Quote :

"thats the main point here, moron, and LS kind of hit upon it in his last post. When jobs die, new jobs open up."

Then how could unemployemenet possibly go up? As soon as people lose jobs someone else should be getting them right? Your statement seems to indicate that the ups and down in the economy never effect the job market.

Quote :

"For instance, look at the makeup of the workplace today: We have TONS of small businesses specializing in selling certain items or specializing in service jobs (pet day care, dog walking, lawn mowing, etc), whereas we didn't really have that twenty years ago. We had manufacturing jobs out the wazoo twenty years ago."

How does that prove anything other than a few jobs have ended and others have opened up? It certainly doesn't prove a correlation betwenen those two.

10/10/2005 12:32:31 PM

The bottom line: There will always be poor people.

10/10/2005 1:40:05 PM

^^ A job is a human construct we made up. A job is nothing more than what you do for others in exchange for money. There is a lot of money in the world so unemployment is a failure of imagination.

If there is a surplus of labor and we are not hampered by regulations then we, as people, will simply make up more things for other people to do for us. It takes time and effort but it really is that simple.

The only way for this system to fail is if there is a shortage of money, which would not be unprecedented. Nevertheless, it can be easily fixed by lowering wages.

[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 1:43 PM. Reason : ^]

10/10/2005 1:42:56 PM

A socialist government is not inevitable. Class conflict is a different story. Every so often the poor will try to toss out the rich, and either they'll fail and start all over again or suddenly some of them will have power and money for the first time and decide that they'd rather hold onto it than distribute it.

10/10/2005 1:48:36 PM

Quote :

"There is a lot of money in the world so unemployment is a failure of imagination."

What a delightfully unfalsifiable justification. Now any time someone is out on the street you can always blame their lack of entrupernuership rather than your grossly ineffective economic system.

Quote :

"will simply make up more things for other people to do for us"

You think we'll start paying people to do nothing? What could possibly lead you to believe that people would just "make up" jobs for other people to do? It certainly didn't happen during the great depression. It took the GOVERNMENT to start making up things for people to do.

10/10/2005 2:41:30 PM

Quote :

"A socialist government is not inevitable. Class conflict is a different story. Every so often the poor will try to toss out the rich, and either they'll fail and start all over again or suddenly some of them will have power and money for the first time and decide that they'd rather hold onto it than distribute it. "

When was the last time this happened in the US?

Quote :

" The only way for this system to fail is if there is a shortage of money"

Ha! Greed and corruption also will cause it to fail. And greed, at least, is inherent to humanity.

[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 2:49 PM. Reason : d]

10/10/2005 2:47:30 PM

Europe grows more and more socialist by the day, and Grumpy's description certainly doesn't describe it very well.

10/10/2005 2:50:34 PM

Quote :

"When was the last time this happened in the US?"

Poor workers form unions, union bosses realize that there's a lot of money in being a union boss, union bosses become rich. I suppose not too many rich people got tossed out in this arrangement, but the point generally stands.

Quote :

"Europe grows more and more socialist by the day"

Just like for a while it was growing more fascist by the day, then more communist by the day, and so on. It won't last. Once the governments consistently fail to make good on their happy-smiley-free-stuff promises, they'll get booted. Watch the news and you can occasionally see microcosms of exactly that.

10/10/2005 3:12:04 PM

^^ Bad example if your goal is to defend socialism. Europe becomes relatively poorer by the day.

Quote :

"You think we'll start paying people to do nothing? What could possibly lead you to believe that people would just "make up" jobs for other people to do? It certainly didn't happen during the great depression. It took the GOVERNMENT to start making up things for people to do."

Start? When did they stop making up jobs for people to do? Whose idea was it to hire people to start laying down fiber-optic cable? Whose idea was it to hire people to design microchips?

There are a lot of millionares in this country, each one can hire someone to do whatever they want them to do. Start making internet routers, drilling for oil, whatever they want them to do.

The great depression was caused by, of all things, a shortage of money. Some people hoarded it, some others refused to print it. Either way, wages were unable to fall fast enough to keep up with the falling supply of money so people went unemployed. By the end of it half the money in circulation ended up in the basement of the federal reserve.

[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 3:15 PM. Reason : ^]

10/10/2005 3:14:38 PM

Quote :

"Just like for a while it was growing more fascist by the day, then more communist by the day, and so on."

Europe never really got more facist or communist, a few european countries did, but certainly not europe as a whole, like it does with socialism.

Quote :

"It won't last. Once the governments consistently fail to make good on their happy-smiley-free-stuff promises, they'll get booted. Watch the news and you can occasionally see microcosms of exactly that."

If you show me one of those microcosms I'll show you the macrocosm of europe becoming more socialist.

Quote :

"Bad example if your goal is to defend socialism. Europe becomes relatively poorer by the day."

Europe has remained relatively stable economically. It shifts down no more than is reflected by the world economy.

Quote :

"Whose idea was it to hire people to start laying down fiber-optic cable? Whose idea was it to hire people to design microchips?"

And you think this was CAUSED by the loss of jobs!?

You said that a loss of jobs will cause more to open up.

Quote :

"The great depression was caused by, of all things, a shortage of money. Some people hoarded it, some others refused to print it. Either way, wages were unable to fall fast enough to keep up with the falling supply of money so people went unemployed. By the end of it half the money in circulation ended up in the basement of the federal reserve."

But why didn't jobs magically appear like the classicals like yourself said they would?

Why did it take Keynes, FDR, and other liberals to actually start things going agian? Capitalism simply works better when the government helps move things along.

10/10/2005 3:37:33 PM

Is socialism inevitable? With all the threads where Kris has been pwnt into oblivion by just about every person in TSB with a high school education...well, basically the thesis of the thread is something I'd only expect from a complete moron.

(j/k )

On a serious note, I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet...



Read Chapter VII ("The Curse of Machinery") @ pg. 35


[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 4:20 PM. Reason : laissez faire is the only inevitability ]

10/10/2005 4:17:24 PM

An older version is actually available online.
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=6767

10/10/2005 4:42:00 PM

pwnt to oblivion?

I'd just like for one person to explain how the free market failed so poorly in the great depression and why it took government involvement to actually start getting somewhere. That should really be enough in itself to shut up classicals.

10/10/2005 5:24:02 PM

Again? But we've told you sooo many times. It was the Government which broke it, the least it could do was get it going again.

That said, the government didn't do much to get it going again. Only a tiny percentage of the population found make-work jobs with the Gov, and the only real structural change was the FDIC which in reality hasn't done much.

Milton Friedman did an excellent job explaining the root causes of the great depression, namely the interraction between a new government institution, the federal reserve, and an old one, the gold standard. The two were fundamentally incompatible and the system was destined to collapse sooner or later.

By 1930 it was too late to abandon the Federal Reserve, so the severity of the great depression was dictated by prolonged adherence to the gold standard. For example, foreign nations which abandoned the gold standard early, or simply never adopted it, faced far less economic trouble while die-hards such as France, Britain, and America which didn't abandon it until well into the 30's were devastated.

[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 5:45 PM. Reason : golden rule]

10/10/2005 5:39:36 PM

Quote :

"Kris: I'd just like for one person to explain how the free market failed so poorly in the great depression and why it took government involvement to actually start getting somewhere. That should really be enough in itself to shut up classicals."

Just for you Kris, since you have already been told sooo many times, I'd recommend following up that book with The Failure of the "New Economics" (1959) and then the anthology The Critics of Keynesian Economics (1960).

Both are available at D.H. Hill. Good stuff all around, you might learn something.

10/10/2005 6:15:57 PM

so apparently it wasnt the problems of the market that brought about the depression like most agree, rather it was the government? well damn, why arent more people teaching these books you guys love so much.

ever considered that maybe you might be, i dont know, ignoring other sides of this and putting too much faith in number crunching? are you looking at this from a purely economics perspective as usual?

I suppose you would have been a part of that corporate conspiracy to take out FDR too, right?



[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 7:16 PM. Reason : .]

10/10/2005 7:14:50 PM

Quote :

"Luigi: so apparently it wasnt the problems of the market that brought about the depression like most agree, rather it was the government? well damn, why arent more people teaching these books you guys love so much."

So as long as a majority of academics teach it, it must be true?

10/10/2005 7:27:14 PM

so long as a majority of people who study it agree on it, there should be some stock in it. this isnt my area, im not going to claim to know much about it, but i can draw some parallels to other instances in other societies.

ie: socialist modernization (best exemplified by the SAR regions now set up in China) is a good example of the government acting with (not in place of) the market to improve a nation's economy.



[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 7:44 PM. Reason : .]

10/10/2005 7:40:41 PM

Quote :

"Again? But we've told you sooo many times. It was the Government which broke it, the least it could do was get it going again."

You've still yet to give me an acceptable explaination. I've heard milton's arguement, and I still don't buy it. He should stick to trying to screw up chile rather than throwing his bullshit at the great depression.

Quote :

"That said, the government didn't do much to get it going again."

Ah so the new deal was niether new nor a deal eh?

Quote :

"Just for you Kris, since you have already been told sooo many times, I'd recommend following up that book with The Failure of the "New Economics" (1959) and then the anthology The Critics of Keynesian Economics (1960)."

I'll assume this is in the same dung pile as the Milton I've read. But I see you don't want to actually answer my question, so please spare me the reading list Levar Burton.

10/10/2005 7:51:08 PM

Quote :

"Kris: But I see you don't want to actually answer my question, so please spare me the reading list Levar Burton."

Sorry, I didn't realize you actually wanted an answer...

Quote :

"Kris: pwnt to oblivion?"

[yes]

10/10/2005 8:05:55 PM

Quote :

"So as long as a majority of academics teach it, it must be true?"

To this specific question, a short answer is "Yes".

10/10/2005 8:19:44 PM

Quote :

"'d just like for one person to explain how the free market failed so poorly in the great depression and why it took government involvement to actually start getting somewhere. That should really be enough in itself to shut up classicals."

Could I have been more explict in asking for an answer?

10/10/2005 8:35:30 PM

^^who are we talking about here?

Im pretty sure the theory that the great depression was caused by the government's fucking up of monetary policy is the one most accepted by ecnonomists. Historians and sociologists might be a different story.

[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 8:43 PM. Reason : ]

10/10/2005 8:42:32 PM

and thats why its silly to argue this

10/10/2005 8:44:30 PM

Quote :

"MathFreak: To this specific question, a short answer is "Yes"."

So then what's the purpose of research?

---

Quote :

"Kris: Could I have been more explict in asking for an answer?"

To that "question" I already gave you an answer. In fact I gave you an anthology full of answers.

Other than retyping the entire book word for word, what more do you want?

[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 9:11 PM. Reason : ---]

10/10/2005 9:10:03 PM

To continue about the majority of academics agreeing so its true line,

Im thinking of all the stuff that majority of academics once believed that turned out to be complete bullshit:

The Dunning School
Eugenics
Mercantilism
The idea that samoan women can have all the unprotected sex they want and never get pregnant.

Just to name a few.

10/10/2005 9:24:59 PM

I too was under the impression that it was settled history about what started the great depression. I have never heard another explanation come from either an economist or historian.

There is no doubt that standard economics produces recessions. And the excesses of the late 20s were no exception. There was going to be a recession in the early 30s and it was going to be a big one. But all the history I have read, except for the ones that blame Jewish banks that is, express a common theme. A normal recession coupled with perverse governmental action created a global economic meltdown.

World Trade was devastated by dramatically higher tarriffs, attempts to save the gold standard made money scarce, etc. etc.

Don't believe me? Listen to one of the Governors of the Federal Reserve:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/200403022/default.htm

[Edited on October 10, 2005 at 11:37 PM. Reason : .]

10/10/2005 11:31:00 PM

10/10/2005 11:41:28 PM

Quote :

"To that "question" I already gave you an answer."

You gave me a book and dodged out.

Quote :

"I too was under the impression that it was settled history about what started the great depression. I have never heard another explanation come from either an economist or historian."

That's irrelevant to my question. My question was not "what caused it", but "why couldn't classical economics do anything more than sit around with their thumbs up their asses and say 'it's going away sooner or later here'". If we don't want to spend half our time in depression and recession then it's plain to see that classical economics is not for us.

10/11/2005 12:32:20 AM

Quote :

"Why did it take Keynes, FDR, and other liberals to actually start things going agian? Capitalism simply works better when the government helps move things along."

Quote :

"That's irrelevant to my question. My question was not "what caused it", but "why couldn't classical economics do anything more than sit around with their thumbs up their asses and say 'it's going away sooner or later here'". If we don't want to spend half our time in depression and recession then it's plain to see that classical economics is not for us."

You realize that FDR never implemented Keynesian economic policy until the war forced the federal government to borrow money, right? (and in which case he didnt do so purposefully)

FDR, while giving away a lot of money to big industry and a little bit to regular folks consistently tried to keep the federal deficit in check and even caused a mini recession during the depression by attempting to balance the government's books.

Of course one major economic policy that FDR used that actually helped us grow was, and get this, trade. After the protectionists had virtually shut off international trade in the early 30s, FDR and the democrats passed the RTAA and negotiated with other nations to dramatically lower the tariffs that had been previously put into place.

10/11/2005 12:49:22 AM

Quote :

"Im thinking of all the stuff that majority of academics once believed that turned out to be complete bullshit:"

You don't understand; this generation of academics is right, because this time they're using science, which, as you know, they have never done before. Also, because MathFreak is counted among their number.

Quote :

"I'd just like for one person to explain how the free market failed so poorly in the great depression and why it took government involvement to actually start getting somewhere."

That some heavy government intervention in one specific context arguably helped the economy =/= even heavier government intervention in all other contexts is definitely good.

10/11/2005 12:52:52 AM

^^^Wha? Since when has it been "recession half the time"?

The previous recession was in 1991 and lasted a whole six months. Unemployment skyrocketed up to the unimaginable single digits, clearly sacrificing all our rights as human beings is a reasonable price to avoid such a calamity.

The last recession started in 2001, a decade after the previous instance, and drove unemployment all the way up to 6.5%, again a calamity unheard of in human events.

Come on Kris, don't over-sell your position. If you find economic liberty morally offensive that is one thing, but don't argue it hasn't served us. You may believe communism would do better, but you must also admit capitalism has done at least an OK job at allocating resources.

[Edited on October 11, 2005 at 12:59 AM. Reason : Krisanthomins]

10/11/2005 12:54:53 AM

1) Lump of Labor Fallacy. There isn't just a certain number of jobs to go around. The fact that robots did all of the production jobs would free up labor resources that could be directed into other fields of industry. Would those jobs be well paying? Hard to say what would be a descenet wage since the advance in technology would lower the real price of production goods, which would increase the real wage of all other jobs.

Personally, I prefer to just remember that we've been able to muddle through several hundred years of continual technological advancement and no one is any poorer for it. That neglects transitional concerns that are irrelevant to your question.

2) Besides, If we were able to build robots to essentially do all of our work for us, then we wouldn't need jobs. We'd let the robots do the work for us while we watched TV. The economic problem of scarcity that systems like socialism and capitalism are designed to mitigate would be solved.

10/11/2005 2:00:13 AM

Quote :

"1) Lump of Labor Fallacy. There isn't just a certain number of jobs to go around. The fact that robots did all of the production jobs would free up labor resources that could be directed into other fields of industry. Would those jobs be well paying? Hard to say what would be a descenet wage since the advance in technology would lower the real price of production goods, which would increase the real wage of all other jobs."

There currently isn't too big of a deficit of jobs, but there potentially can be, esp. with our populations growing. If you look at some of the destitute populations of Africa, they have crap loads of unemployment, and not enough money to employ them. This seems to be similar to the situation LoneSnark is describing as before the Great Depression (not enough money). If the manufacturing and a lot of the service industry is taken up with computers, then the available jobs for humans would be less (fast food restaurants could be mostly robots, most of Wal-mart could be robots, cab drivers could be robots, secretaries could be robots, receptionists could be robots). Essentially, the situation would be similar to destitute countries now, too many people, and not enough jobs for them (there would be enough money, but it wouldn't get to them without making up fake jobs for them, or socialist programs).

Quote :

" Personally, I prefer to just remember that we've been able to muddle through several hundred years of continual technological advancement and no one is any poorer for it. That neglects transitional concerns that are irrelevant to your question."

That's mostly due to the fact that we've always had lots of space for new people and new buildings (and we still do, but we won't always, plus with our current energy infrastructure, pollution could be a big problem). Basically, imagine a world with Star Trek level of technology. In Star Trek, the idea that depraved people exist is there, but I don't recall any episode where they really focused on that aspect of their society. How would our society be at that point in technology? We literally would have to pay people to do nothing, or vastly thin the population (or retard the spread of technology).

Quote :

"2) Besides, If we were able to build robots to essentially do all of our work for us, then we wouldn't need jobs. We'd let the robots do the work for us while we watched TV. The economic problem of scarcity that systems like socialism and capitalism are designed to mitigate would be solved."

All of our problems wouldn't be solved is my point, not without socialist elements in place.

10/11/2005 2:21:48 AM

Wow, just ignore everything everyone has said and restate your possition. Great technique.

Quote :

"If you look at some of the destitute populations of Africa, they have crap loads of unemployment, and not enough money to employ them. This seems to be similar to the situation LoneSnark is describing as before the Great Depression (not enough money)."

You would be wrong. Africa does not have a shortage of "money" per se. The inflation rate in Zimbabwe is somewhere around 800% a year (it used to be higher, but the government ran out of ink). Africa has a governance problem causing a monetary problem, not the other-way around.

As for your restated position, let me weave a metaphor to help you understand.
Imagine an isolated country of happy people living under a stable free-market regime. There is minimal unemployment and the average work-week is 40 hours and the average hourly wage is $20. Now, lets shake up the place by introducing magic robots that require no work to construct and can perform half the jobs in the land. Well, in the short term, half the workers in the land are unemployed because the productivity rate of every worker has doubled. At this point there are two equations that need solving: to find the new wage, and the new work week. The two equations are largely independent of each other:
_The new wage would be somewhere between the original average wage of $20/hour and double the original average wage or $40/hour. For example, with the original wage of $20/hour, average prices would be halfed. With double the original average wage, prices would remain the same.

_The new work week would be somewhere between the original of 40 hours and a low of 20 hours a week depending on the workers preference for free time. Because at the new wage and price level you can maintain the same standard of living you had before with half the hourly work, some will prefer the freetime to ever more stuff. The more people that do will bring down the average number of hours worked per week.
_The average work-week could remain the same if everyone was eager for a higher standard of living and didn't value free-time.

Throughout the early stages of industrialization the preference had been to hold wages constant and allow prices to fall. In response, workers largely prefered a higher standard of living to more freetime.
In the 20th century, thanks to the abandonment of the gold standard, the preference has been to hold prices constant and allow higher wages. In response, workers have largely prefered a higher standard of living to more time off from work.

10/11/2005 12:04:24 PM

Quote :

"You realize that FDR never implemented Keynesian economic policy until the war forced the federal government to borrow money, right?"

So the new deal is what exactly?

Quote :

"You don't understand; this generation of academics is right, because this time they're using science, which, as you know, they have never done before. Also, because MathFreak is counted among their number."

No, you don't understand. Because academics have been wrong a few times before that must mean they are not right now nor will they ever be right agian despite the extremely large number of times they have been right.

Quote :

"Wha? Since when has it been "recession half the time"?"

We're in it right now. Hlaf the time we're in inflation and the other half we're in recession. It's like driving a car with square wheels.

Quote :

"If you find economic liberty morally offensive that is one thing, but don't argue it hasn't served us."

Yeah it's served us, just like horse drawn buggy has served us, that doesn't mean the car isn't a great deal better.

10/11/2005 2:10:04 PM

Quote :

"So the new deal is what exactly?"

Um, the new deal. A keynesian response would have to include three things; increase spending, cut taxes, run a deficit. The new deal only involved one of those and not even the most important one.

10/11/2005 2:20:03 PM