Distribution of Wealth in a Robot-Driven World

An anonymous reader sent another piece by Marshall Brain. He continues his examination of a society where most manual labor is performed by machines, idling a large fraction of the current workforce. See his previous piece for background.

Comments

Not if republicans can help it.

[HanzoSan]

Republicans want 100% of the wealth while the rest of the losers get exactly 0%.

Expect lots of people to starve to death even in the world of robots.

I know what I'm talking about

[HanzoSan]

This same thing happens in the USA in ghettos. Look at gang leader, the gang leader goes to the poor community, flashes money around, talks a good talk, and suddenly has a million followers.

Think of the black panthers, luis farakhan, jesse jackson and others who basically go to poor communities, and talk and suddenly have a million followers.

Yes when you go to people who have nothing, and then find some devil, be it the white devil, or the american devil to blame it on, well its easy.

Hitler did this to the jews, the jews were the cause of all germanys problems, just like to certain republicans, its the blacks and hispanics who are taking all the jobs.

Every leader usually blames some evil people or group of people to gain support, George Bush even does this. "Those evil towel heads!! the axis of evil" etc kinda crap he says sure it gets the Americans to support him and blame all terrorism on the arabs.

Fact is, Bin Laden does what all leaders do, go to the people who have nothing, offer them a way out through heaven and religion, brainwash them into commiting suicide while at the same time convincing them to hate by telling them "Well its that evil white american man causing all these problems!"

And you know what, when Bush the White American male goes on TV and calls them all evil, well it just confirms it. When we drop bombs on them you know what, its like what the republicans do.

"Well, lets lock all those who live in the ghettos in the USA in prison, lets get rid of welfare, let them get jobs and work their way out"

Well this makes it easier for the gang leader to recruit and say "See! I told you the white man hates you, Look at what hes doing locking you up in prison and cutting all your programs!, join me and sell drugs, at worse you'll be in prison and at best you'll be rich!"

You see? Just follow the logic, its brainwashing.

Growing Economy = Rich/Poor Gap Increases, ALWAYS

[Nova Express]

There's a large amount of economic ignornace on display in this thread. The largest fallacy is posters don't seem to realize: In a growing economy, the highest income percentile will always outpace others because there's no place else for it to go.

Here's a greatly simplified example of five people and their yearly incomes, from lowest to highest:

Bob: $20

Tim: $40

Doug: $60

David: $80

Roy: $100

Now suppose that it was a banner year for the economy, and everyone's income rose 10%. The next year everyone's income would look like this:

Bob: $22

Tim: $44

Doug: $66

David: $88

Roy: $110

So, things are peachy, right? Not according to the newspapers or class warriors, because the gap between rich and poor increased. The gap between rich and poor, between Bob and Roy, went from $80 to $88.

Now, suppose that next year, despite no economic growth, Bob wins $500 from the lottery. Yee-ha! So now the income chart looks like this:

Tim: $44

Doug: $66

David: $88

Roy: $110

Bob: $522

So, things weren't so hot for the economy as a whole, but the poor did well, right? Again, not according to the newspapers or class warriors. Even though Bob got rich the gap between rich and poor increased again. The gap between rich and poor went from $88 to a whopping $478! How did that happen? Because Bob is now in the highest percentile, he no longer counts as poor, so his economic gains accrue not to the lowest income level, but to his new income level, now the highest. Note that Bob doesn't need to go up to the highest fifth for this effect to take place, he only has to reach the next economic plateau for his economic gains no longer to accrue to "the poor." In fact, the effect is far more pronounced with far more people.

The lesson, once again: The gains of the highest income brackets will always outpace those in lower income brackets because there's no place else for the income to go. This does not mean the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.

For more information on this subject, see the Michigan Income Study, which found huge levels of economic mobility in America.

Re:I'm going to *so* get modded down for this, but

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I've always felt that trying to eliminate the undesirable and banal jobs for which you need little skill and intelligence is good for society; of course, I consider myself in the 5%.

There is no such thing as skill and intelligence. It is purely arbitrary and dependent on the environment. For example, a computer engineer is next to useless in most parts of the world (because there isn't even a computer industry in most countries). In contrast, teachers are not highly valued in say USA whereas they are very important in many other countries.

To further prove my point, consider a salesperson. Is that person valuable or not? Should a person be pushing products to you even if you don't want it? The answer is arbitrary.

How about an astronomer? To most people, an astronomer is next to useless. People do not value them and many people don't even consider them to be skilled in anything. Needless to say, a segment of the population would disagree...

The whole notion of skill and intelligence was propagated by the aristocrats in the 17th and 18th century to maintain a classist system where they benefitted.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:We could have had this already by now...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Supply and demand is the most bogus concept ever unleashed on humans. It was invented by capitalists and supported today by capitalists. All economists, who are mostly capitalist, are a bunch of fools. They will all be discredited within 200 years..

Supply and demand MAY work under a theoretical framework but doesn't work in reality. A classic example is stock markets. Economists have been trying to explain stock market for decades and still can't. Why? Because supply and demand doesn't work. The simple reason is because none of the assumptions needed for their capitalist theories are true in the real world.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:History repeats itself?

[_Sharp'r_]

"First, don't confuse communism with a totalitarian dictatorship. One does not necessarily means another"

Read F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom". It demonstrates quite convincingly that communism (by it's very nature) inevitably means totalitarian dictatorship (actually, more oligarchy than strict dictatorship, but that's splitting hairs).

The same type of people who "get ahead" under Communism also turn out to be the same type of people who set themselves up as totalitarian's.

Hasn't anyone told you fellas yet that Communism didn't work and that Socialism isn't far behind on it's way to the trash heap of history?

Re:Goal-less productivity...

[ErikZ]

What the hell are you talking about? People aren't living in the streets because the lack of money is making them stupid. They're living in the streets because the tend to have mental problems.

We have MANY social programs, and anyone who has their act together can pull themselves up and off the streets.