Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PanH]

In a capitalist system, you don't need people to consume unless you need something they produce. When labor is no longer necessary to produce capital, laborers are worth nothing despite having a cost to maintain, and so will be optimized out of the system.

Or in short: it's you or capitalism, take your pick.

Okay. It seems like we're missing the big picture here. Which is what I was trying to say earlier. If we have LITERALLY ENOUGH ROBOTS TO MAKE ALL HUMAN LABOUR UNNECESSARY, why would there even be an economy? We would literally live in Utopia where all of our needs were provided for.

This is kinda naive. Even robots are not free to produce or maintain. Literally all of the labor works would be replaced, but I don't see how or why would big companies/investors/rich people offer welfare to all the population that was living on labor works. A situation where a robotic economy would be achieved through capitalism advancement but abandoned afterwards would need a pretty big paradigm shift, or something akin to a worldwide (industrial or not) revolution.
Also, it could lead to a stagnation in all research, expansion and such. It's pretty easy to realize that capitalism won't cut it, but we'll need a new system that works.

[Reelya]

It's actually more naive to say "I don't see how or why would big companies/investors/rich people offer welfare".

Because ... we already do what you said. So that objection is clearly out of whack with reality.

If you look at The Soviet Union, what you're actually looking at is the end result of running an entire nation as a single corporation. There's nobody to sell stuff to, so everything stagnates. Basically an advanced nation where everything is owned by a few corporations and nobody has a job is headed to the same place as the USSR. Who are the corporations going to sell stuff to: each other? How are any of them going to make a profit then?

[SalmonGod]

Believe it or not, lots of people don't need the threat of starvation to be motivated to strive for progress.  Probably more than enough people to continue making things better long after we've developed the infrastructure to maintain all of humanity's basic needs with very little effort... which we arguable already have, but don't make proper use of.

[PanH]

It's actually more naive to say "I don't see how or why would big companies/investors/rich people offer welfare".

Because ... we already do what you said. So that objection is clearly out of whack with reality.

It is done only because the government is forcing their hand. Social Marketing is making use of it, but there is no unmotivated handing out of welfare.

[Reelya]

Well the government is elected by the people not corporations, so you'd need a good reason that the people would elect someone who lets them starve to death despite production increasing. People are gradually going to be out of work because of automation, they're going to be covered by existing programs such as Medicaid, Food Stamps etc. If 100% of people are out of work, 100% of people are eligible for existing welfare. And those people are the voters.

Sure, corporations have a big influence on elections, but within reason. Politicians still have to maintain laws which at least give people a baseline of existence. Hence why minimum wage laws exist etc, despite corporations utterly hating those laws.

[PanH]

Well the government is elected by the people not corporations, so you'd need a good reason that the people would elect someone who lets them starve to death despite production increasing.

Sure, corporations have a big influence on elections, but within reason. Politicians still have to maintain laws which at least give people are baseline of existence. Hence why minimum wage laws exist etc, despite corporations utterly hating those laws.

Agreed, there is no starvation in a democracy. But the poor - rich gap might grow even wider.

[Reelya]

Yeah, but the question would then be what's the basis for becoming rich if nobody is there to buy your stuff?

Also, "rich" could easily be redefined, for example by a currency devaluation or similar when things become untenable.

Remember to stay rich, the value of your assets has to increase faster than inflation.

[Max™]

Well the government is elected by the people not corporations, so you'd need a good reason that the people would elect someone who lets them starve to death despite production increasing. People are gradually going to be out of work because of automation, they're going to be covered by existing programs such as Medicaid, Food Stamps etc. If 100% of people are out of work, 100% of people are eligible for existing welfare. And those people are the voters.

Sure, corporations have a big influence on elections, but within reason. Politicians still have to maintain laws which at least give people a baseline of existence. Hence why minimum wage laws exist etc, despite corporations utterly hating those laws.

Well, no, there isn't much reason or limits after CU, that's why people are hoping it will be repealed.

[Reelya]

I was making a deeper point. Corporations can only push so far. There are lots of things that nobody would ever dream of trying to push through. You just don't think there are limits because nobody pushes the real limits of what can be proposed.

How about the "all poor babies go into a woodchipper" law, ala Swift's A Modest Proposal. It really wouldn't matter if 100% of corporations pushed that law, it's just not even getting debated. There are limits on what politicians can try and do.

[Max™]

Prior to Trump showing how far money and a name can get someone, I would have argued that there are limits.

[Reelya]

Prior to Trump showing how far money and a name can get someone, I would have argued that there are limits.

No, there are still limits. Even Trump's nowhere close to the example I gave.

[Max™]

Well no, but I was ignoring the hyperbole.

[Reelya]

But it wasn't hyperbole: it's an example of a "too far" thing. And it's the existence of "too far" things at all which was the point I was making. You might say "there are no limits" but there are in fact extremely strong limits on what can be said, because you're discounting that one example, but I could literally come up with millions of permutations of "unspeakable" laws.

And when it boils down to it, we were talking about whether universal unemployment would mean universal welfare (which, I might add they would already be legally entitled to), or whether the people would literally vote themselves to starve to death. Not even Trump is calling for an end to food stamps. Trump has complained that too many people are getting Food Stamps under Obama, but even hinting at getting rid of the Food Stamps at all is going too far politically, even for someone like Trump, who says he can shoot people and still get elected.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

This is kinda naive. Even robots are not free to produce or maintain. Literally all of the labor works would be replaced, but I don't see how or why would big companies/investors/rich people offer welfare to all the population that was living on labor works. A situation where a robotic economy would be achieved through capitalism advancement but abandoned afterwards would need a pretty big paradigm shift, or something akin to a worldwide (industrial or not) revolution.
Also, it could lead to a stagnation in all research, expansion and such. It's pretty easy to realize that capitalism won't cut it, but we'll need a new system that works.

What is known as "the economy" is really just one aspect of the human condition. Just because everyone would have everything they ever would want or need because all the labor is automated doesn't mean people stop competing with each other (because they literally can't.) It just means focus is shifted. Our statuses would just be decided by something other than material wealth.

Of course, people will never be 100% equal in terms of material possessions, due simply to thinking differently, or not caring, or what have you, but lets make an example of this. A very common thing humans have. Oxygen. There's enough to go around for everyone. No one cares how much or little oxygen you have and no wars are fought over it. If quite literally ALL labor were to be automated, our sense of achievement and social status would merely shift to something that was not common. Certainly there would be war, disease, and suffering, but the quality of life would be higher, and our "economy" would merely be based on something else like number of children, or whatever rare materials still existed. Animals owned, etc. etc.

EDIT: Also, to go back and address your first point. Sure, actual perfection is impossible--but it's our ability to imagine hypothetically perfect systems that allow us to advance our understanding. Also, IF there were unlimited goods/necessities/luxuries, why would people not give them out for free? They would have no value. Thus it wouldn't be offering welfare at all.

[Max™]

I was saying that a shift to a post-capitalist society will be fought by corporations, whether the people working for those corps want it or not, because that is what the logic of corporate existence demands. Having them able to more or less buy elections just makes the endgame scarier, neutering them now will pay off when we have to deal with them later.