Slashdot Mirror
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says Labor Shouldn't Have To Fear Automation (techcrunch.com)
Munky101 tipped us off to some interesting comments from New York's activist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. TechCrunch reports:
It's impossible to discuss the seismic shift toward automation without a conversation about job loss. Opponents of these technologies criticize a displacement that could someday result in wide-scale unemployment among what is often considered "unskilled" roles. Advocates, meanwhile, tend to suggest that reports of that nature tend to be overstated. Workforces shift, as they have done for time immemorial. During a conversation at SXSW this week, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered another take entirely.
"We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work," she said in an answer reported by The Verge. "We should be excited by that. But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem... We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in," The Verge quoted Ocasio-Cortez as saying. "Because not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage."
And Ocasio-Cortez cited Bill Gates' suggestion (first floated in a presentation on Quartz) that a robot tax might be a way to make that vision real. "What [Gates is] really talking about is taxing corporations," she reportedly said. "But it's easier to say: 'tax a robot.' "
Science fiction writer William Gibson called her comments "shockingly intelligent" for a politician. Fast Company adds that robots "have put half a million people out of work in the United States, and researchers estimate that bots could take 800 million jobs by 2030" -- then quotes Ocasio-Cortez's assessment of the unfair state of labor today.
"We should be working the least amount we've ever worked, if we were actually paid based on how much wealth we were producing, but we're not," she said. "We're paid by how little we're desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and given to a billionaire."
"We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work," she said in an answer reported by The Verge. "We should be excited by that. But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem... We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in," The Verge quoted Ocasio-Cortez as saying. "Because not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage."
And Ocasio-Cortez cited Bill Gates' suggestion (first floated in a presentation on Quartz) that a robot tax might be a way to make that vision real. "What [Gates is] really talking about is taxing corporations," she reportedly said. "But it's easier to say: 'tax a robot.' "
Science fiction writer William Gibson called her comments "shockingly intelligent" for a politician. Fast Company adds that robots "have put half a million people out of work in the United States, and researchers estimate that bots could take 800 million jobs by 2030" -- then quotes Ocasio-Cortez's assessment of the unfair state of labor today.
"We should be working the least amount we've ever worked, if we were actually paid based on how much wealth we were producing, but we're not," she said. "We're paid by how little we're desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and given to a billionaire."
My friend owns a bar, pays workers minimum wage, last time I checked heâ(TM)s not a billionaire....
Almost as intelligent as her recent grilling of Wells Fargo...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Automation vastly improved the lives of people who were previously toiling manually outdoors all day all year round, for example. At least, eventually. There was a difficult transition for them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die."
We do have welfare programs and even housing programs that pay as much as some basic income proposals. So while it is true your life can suck horribly if you don't have a job, you won't be left to die.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Ok we get it. She thinks tax/redistribution is the answer. That just feels like half the solution. The other half is what will the people DO with their UBI or similar style income?
Oh and of course taxing the robots will slow down the inovation which seems to contradict her first point about welcoming the automation.
What she means, of course, is "it's easier to sell: 'tax a robot.' " "Don't tax you and don't tax me, tax that robot behind the tree."
AOC impresses me more and more every day.
She has clearly done her homework and understands Socialist theory (as taught by the DSA).
Not only that -- she sticks to those principles and does not adapt to the popular wind direction of the day.
I have less confidence in the DSA and the Democrats, but so far, AOC is solid!
Now let the trolls pile on -- it does not change the fact that Capitalism is failing (and threatening to take the world with it).
A value added tax to fund a UBI/Universal Basic Services is another approach and one harder to circumvent with tax or production location loopholes. Say you wanted to implement a UBI of 12k per person per year for adults. That's roughly 3 trillion per year in the US given 250 million on the payroll. Projected US population and projected GDP show that the GDP is outpacing population growth by a large margin. Even if you take inflation into account, the price of goods and services is dropping as automation takes over. You can save money by cancelling other welfare programs, and all that cash would trickle up into the economy as well which has positive benefits. These alone could make a meager straight UBI doable in a 20-40 year timeframe, maybe even 12k/year, if the population and GDP keep growing roughly as expected.
Wait... won't automation and Weak AI/AI bring down the costs of goods and services? What would people absolutely have to spend that money on? Housing? Food? Child care? Education? Healthcare? Access to information? Given the lower future costs it may be best to give out 500 dollars today's equivelant per month and offer free basic housing around the nation, free basic food, free child care, free education, free healthcare, and free basic internet access. The costs of all of these could go quite low in the future and a regulated non profit market like Germany has health insurance or a government run solution could be quite efficient with low overhead if done right. That way the most needy benefit the most with the basic services, and everyone is lifted by the basic income while reasonably well off people will forgo their basic services and pay for better ones.
The trend throughout the history of humanity has been towards less work. We've gone from small groups that had to keep watch 24/7, to tribes that had to leave their encampments for days on end hunting and gathering, to villagers having to work 7 days a week, 16 hours a day, to towns that work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, to cities that work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, and we're already seeing the rise of flexible working, home working, and talk of 4 day weeks.
It seems pretty clear that automation by robotics will merely continue this trend; workers will be just as productive supported by robots working 3 or 4 days a week as they were working 5 without those robots. As it has been since humanity first stopped swinging from trees this will inevitably not result in job losses; but simply people working for less time whilst achieving the same productivity.
But just as the trend has been towards people having to work less since humans first became humans, the complaints about how change will be the end of humanity have been constant, but also constantly wrong. Just as luddites who smashed up machinery in cotton mills 200 years ago believed that that machinery would put them out of work were completely wrong in that it merely meant they had to work less then, people who claim AI will put them out of work now are also wrong.
Everything changes and nothing changes, the world progresses, life gets better, but people still find things to get scared of, and moan and be wrong about as they always have done. Automation has only ever made it easier to be a worker, if you don't think so then go try living like a 17th century factory worker then come back and tell me people have it just as hard today. You're making the mistake of believing that because there are blips, because you don't see the benefits in your goldfish memory time frame, that it doesn't happen, but the entire history of humanity proves you wrong and there is zero evidence or reason to think this new technology will be in any way different.
Marshal Brain wrote a short sci fi story out lining the two path society can do as automation reduces the amount of labor required for daily sustenance. It's not the world's best writing but it's succinct and insightful
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The crap that rolls out of this woman's head is...I just have no words to convey the level of dumb.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If they supplied their own tool, i.e. the digger, then yes they could get paid 50x more than what they were.
But the vast majority of them didn't supply their own tool - the employer did.
The employees job improved significantly, however, in that they no longer had to carry out back breaking manual labour, they could work in better comfort as most diggers have enclosed cabs, they can work longer hours due to less physical fatigue and they can do the same work at older ages.
My brother in law started his working life as a hod carrier at 16. He is completely screwed now physically as a result, and it's only automation that has allowed him to continue working in the building industry and earning a wage the only way he knows how.
But let's ignore all that, because "automation is bad".
If you're just showing up for a McJob, you're not producing wealth and you're not paid to produce wealth.
Bullshit! If you weren't producing wealth then why would the corporation pay you to show up.
The corporation is generating wealth and they're trading a portion of that wealth with you for your time and labor.
Bullshit! The corporation is not trading wealth for your time out of the badness of their hearts. They are paying you because you are generating more wealth for them than they are paying you.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No, but assuming that the productivity of other job positions around that person also improved about 50 times, the real value of their labor increased as a result of everything else being less expensive to produce. The amount of dollars you earn is utterly irrelevant when you fail to consider what you can purchase with them. Despite all of the people claiming the middle class is being destroyed, real median income has been slowly rising.
Automation is never going to significantly improve the wages of the people employing it in and of itself. The only possible way that can happen is if they are the only ones in possession of the improvements and no one else is capable of replicating those techniques and the workers can't be replaced by someone else who will accept less pay. As soon as anyone else figures out how to get the same improvements, competition drives prices back down. There's additional money to be made in the short term while that process occurs, but a rank and file worker isn't going to become extremely wealthy unless they own their own their own business.
Some people like to call this process a race to the bottom, but they only look at it from the perspective of the people racing downward. Everyone who's not involved in that particular race is the beneficiary of less expensive goods and services. As all industries undergo this continually (everyone is busy running in their own separate race) it produces more wealth. You can grumble that it isn't equally shared, but it's largely inconsequential.
These morons think they define reality and they can make it whatever they want. In actual reality, that is of course not how things work at all.
I do agree that it is not a good idea to fear having your job automated away. It will happen, but fearing it will just make things even worse. And there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it, except some temporary stop-gaps that will make things even worse though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The workforce gets indirect benefits by affordable goods. Imagine what good would cost if there was no automation. Most people would never own a car if all cars were manufactured without any automation. Your t-shirts would cost $100 each, because it would cost that much to collect and process cotton manually, then saw the t-shirt by hand with a needle and thread.
Ok but when a ditch digger could do 50x time ditches, did they get 50x the pay? That's my point.
Ditch diggers earned a lot more as backhoe operators, though nothing like 50x more. That differential between the new pay of all machine operators taken together plus profit to the backhoe manufacturer and the pay of all ditch diggers taken together represents the incremental productivity that the machine has gifted into the economy, to be shared by all.
You do understand that no country is pure socialist or pure capitalist? Or are you trying to trying to ignore facts?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Automation has been freeing up more spare time for people since roughly 1800. The sky is yet to fall. Those who can't figure out what to do with their newest imcrements of spare time are welcome to use fentanyl or whatever as an exit from this cruel world. The rest of us have new things to do.
Robots just represent the latest batch of automated jobs.
No, we wouldn't, because virtually every other country on earth pays for full universal healthcare for HALF of what we already spend on just medicare/medicaid.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Twelve years to Climageddon. You just pay for it. Just illegally shuffle money between PACs and LLCs. Unemployment is low because everyone is working two jobs. Need I go on?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
AOC has a degree in economics. She knows damn well what reality is. There's been plenty of research on the subject and we've long since gotten to the point where we can feed, cloth, house and give healthcare to everyone and that's before the coming Automation Revolution.
OTOH I've got folks on the right who tell me they'll be new jobs but nobody'll say what those jobs are. Occasionally somebody will say "Bio-Tech", which is what I heard in the 90s. Or they list a bunch of service jobs nobody will be able to afford when they lose their jobs. Meanwhile the President of the United States is a climate change denier. And one way we know climate change is real is that it's been called out in SEC filings. You can lie to Congress, you can lie to your Priest, hell, you can even lie to yourself, but you do not lie to the SEC...
And don't get me started on the Evangelicals that make up the second wing of the GOP (the first being the wealthy plutocrats). There's a lot that wouldn't know reality if it bit 'em on the rear. They're still arguing that Evolution isn't a thing and that The Flood happened. I know it's not nice to call folks out for religious beliefs, but wrong is wrong, and I draw the line when they start trying to sneak it into schools and into laws, which they've been doing for ages (Abortion bans anyone?)
Fearing a bad thing doesn't make it worse if you stop it from happening. We're not animals at the whims of nature. We're thinking, reasoning beings.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Despite all of the people claiming the middle class is being destroyed, real median income has been slowly rising.
If the distribution of wealth wasn't so skewed in favor of the rich, median income should be dramatically rising instead of slowly rising. Compare it to GDP, which has more than doubled since 1990.
Trust me, none of those countries are socialist. I grew up in some of them, I’ve lived for the majority of my life there, I emigrated to the US partially because growing socialist policies were making work-life unsustainable.
Yes, they have plenty of socialist policies, partially due to the EU but they’re also some of the highest taxed countries and you still have to work a lot to pay taxes that support those that don’t.
What they don’t have: guaranteed income (which is a basic tenet of socialism/communism), guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing. They do have those for immigrants and professional victims but not for their own population. They have government funded healthcare, except they don’t pay for the majority of your healthcare costs and you still are required to get private insurance.
However socialist movements in those countries have led to unstable economies and a growing tension over the last 2 decades between immigrants and natives to the point that the only reason local governments in Belgium, France and the Netherlands aren’t currently extreme-right (yes, Nazi-style parties) are huge coalitions between every other party to prevent them coming to power. Those coalitions however make the government, especially in Belgium and the Netherlands but also in France extremely volatile and unstable.
But keep dreaming about your socialist countries.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
None of those countries are socialist. The Prime Minister of Denmark had to explain that to the very intelligent kids at Harvard not all that long ago. All of the Scandinavian countries are capitalist countries with high income tax rates that are paid for by a larger percentage of population as well as a VAT. Also, up until recently, they all had much lower corporate income tax rates than the U.S. They didn't raise theirs either, we just cut ours to a similar level that they have.
Those countries also have several various other factors that are distinct to each, but also not socialist. For example, Sweden has a voucher system for schools and as a result a large number of charter schools. Norway doesn't have a government mandated minimum wage. I wonder if you'd like to see the U.S. implement those socialist policies?
I suppose if you want to relabel free market capitalism as socialism I can't really stop you, but you may want to wrap some copper wire around Marx and put a magnet on his tombstone so that you can generate electricity while he spins in his grave.
Never tried farming for a living, have you? No, it's not a matter of "work during planting season, goof off till harvest, work for a few weeks at harvest, goof off all winter, lather, rinse, repeat"....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Why?
Firstly, if you're 2x more productive, and need to make 2.5x as much product, then you only need to work 25% more, not 50% (2.5/2 = 1.25)
Meanwhile, if you have 2.5x the population your production is providing, you should also have 2.5x as many people available to hire to produce it. Do so, and each person only has to work (1.25x the work / 2.5x the workers) = 50% as much, while producing the same amount of value per-capita.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I was a pipelayer until 1999 when I tore up my knee. In the southeast, the guy running the tractor would make between $18/hr and $25/hr, white guys in the ditch were maybe $12-$15/hr, hispanic or black were maybe $9-$13, somewhere in there (yes, it was straight rascist. Don't bitch at me about it, I was one of the guys standing in the ditch with a shovel). There would typically be about 3 or 4 labor guys for each tractor guy, although I saw one crew with about 10 laborers paired with one tractor operator.
I would guess that crews are the same or smaller now. I am sure they make a little more money. I doubt many of them make a lot in any context that includes software engineers. People (or businesses) that own tractors can make a lot of money.
The issue with the benefits of automation is similar, I think, with the issue with the benefits of the tractor. The benefits accrue to the owner of the automation, same as the benefits of the tractor. If factory laborers bought the robots that replaced their jobs, it would be natural to agree that they should keep those profits while relaxing at home. Unfortunately, it's the factory/shop/store owners that are buying them and the laborers might be in trouble.
It seems morally straightforward that the people who took the risk of investing in automation should receive the rewards, but that results in a seriously fubared society. So here I sit waiting for some insightful commentary, 'cause damned if I know the answer.
That’s not what he said either. He said “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy,” Rasmussen said.
The Nordic model relies on high taxes which funds a cradle to grave system. Most capitalists would scoff at that kind of wealth redistribution. For example healthcare and education is free for everyone. People call those same ideas of AOC and Bernie Sanders “socialist.” But when they describe the Nordic model they are not “socialist”. Which is it?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So when people call healthcare and free education ideas socialist of AOC, do you correct them and explain that these countries have them too. Or do you join them?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And the people in Venezuela and North Korea only go hungry because of the sanctions of the US ... seems like a failure of capitalism to me.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yeah, the problem is that the current Medicare spending rates are ridiculous - thats the point that is trying to be made.
You don't just need to increase Medicare spending, you need to reform the entire thing.
You already spend more per head of *population* (and not per person actually covered) on Medicare and Medicaid than many western countries spend on socialised medicine for their entire populations - that signifies a problem that you aren't going to spend your way out of, and it also signifies a fundamental issue with the way healthcare is provided in your country.
And *thats* the fundamental problem - you are expecting for-profit entities to supply healthcare at reasonable cost, and they aren't. We have all read and heard about the ridiculous discussions that go on between care providers and insurance providers about costs and billing.
The government should run its own healthcare providers, and its own hospitals, and employ its own doctors, nurses and other staff.
But thats pretty unacceptable to Americans for some reason - apparently, only the military are allowed to be a massive government employer in such a manner.
What they don’t have: guaranteed income (which is a basic tenet of socialism/communism), guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing. They do have those for immigrants and professional victims but not for their own population.
Stop your lying. Nothing of that is true.
However socialist movements in those countries have led to unstable economies and a growing tension over the last 2 decades between immigrants and natives to the point that the only reason local governments in Belgium, France and the Netherlands aren’t currently extreme-right (yes, Nazi-style parties) are huge coalitions between every other party to prevent them coming to power. Those coalitions however make the government, especially in Belgium and the Netherlands but also in France extremely volatile and unstable.
Again, lies. The economies of the 'socialist' countries you mention are extremely stable in comparison to other countries in the world, just look at the growth rates in recent years. The governments as well. In fact, in the Netherlands, the coalitions have been slightly right leaning for decades now.
The rise of populism is a worldwide phenomenon fueled by sensationalism and geopolitical strife and is clearly not a result of 'socialist movements'.
Occasional Cortex may be cuter than Bernie, but that doesn't make socialism work any better. Just like it's close se cousin, communism, the ideas sound great right up until the smash head first into reality. Human nature does not work that way.
In Bernie's case, though, he can at least debate and defend his ideas. Have you ever heard AOC trying to answer real questions? Not puff pieces where she gets to use answers written by someone else, but questions that reveal what she, herself, actually knows?
The woman is an idiot. She's a puppet, playing a role. Her handlers mostly manage to keep her out of situations where she can screw up the script, but it's obvious if you're paying attention.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The other thing people would spend UBI on is freedom. Remember, you're not free so long as somebody controls your access to food, shelter, medicine and education. Until you secure those things you're one paycheck away from doing anything the people in charge tell you.
The people willing to listen to that argument will probably be the first to point out that now you're completely dependent on the government. The US mindset is built around the idea that you create value, so you get paid and you pay for the services you want/need. And that this holds true whether you're the village smith or a software developer working for Apple / Google / Microsoft / Amazon / Facebook. The rest of the world figured out long ago that against a large corporation the deck is heavily stacked against you. Sure a few unique skills and competencies are compensated very well, but most workers most of the time are met with a slightly low ball offer and a shrug that this is the going rate. And if the whole team gets uppity well maybe they can be outsourced, even if it costs time and money and quality suffers they can afford to do it to show everybody is expendable.
Despite all the proof that companies would power play and exploit the workers to way below minimum wage if they could, those who want freedom want to play that game. They don't want food stamps, subsidized housing, public healthcare, public higher education, minimum wage laws or anything else that prevent corporations from extracting the maximum amount of work for the least amount of compensation. Because they believe your true worth is what somebody is willing to offer you, rather than a tactical game of finding the person most desperate to get a paycheck. Particularly in a market downturn it's easy to wait you out until you're that person, again unless you're the one of the select few they'd like to hire in any market. But we can't all be those people.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Automation doesn't make things cheaper anymore. It increases profits, and that's the biggest reason any company invests in it...
C17H21NO4
Which country in Europe has a socialist economy? Scandinavia is unabashedly capitalist in economic models. They have a strong social safety net on which they spend their taxes, but their economic systems are capitalist, full-stop.
China started to grow when Deng Xiaoping implemented capitalist reforms into the socialist economic model, but it's since stalled and is on the cusp of collapse because of centralized command-and-control (as required by socialism) of the banks, telecom, and others. Laos and Vietnam? They thrive because they are cheaper resource bases than China. So I will grant that socialism IS great for exploiting people...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Trust me, none of those countries are socialist.
Here's a problem we're having in the US. A Policy Proposer will propose a policy idea which will then be rebutted by a Trump Supporter. And then Trump Supporter ends up resolving their own problem with the policy, but not realizing that they did. They do so because they had a rebuttal to every point the Policy Proposer made, so they think that they won the debate. The Trump Supporters act like the other side is trying to get the US to be a socialist state regardless of the details, they just want the label to be socialist. The Policy Proposers care less about the label and more about the details.
PP: We should do X.
TS: But that's Socialism! You'll ruin us like Venezuela.
PP: Venezuela doesn't really do X, but the Scandinavian countries do and we can see that it works for them.
TS: But those countries aren't Socialist. See, what a bad idea you have. Check mate, I won.
Economics has a concept called "revealed preferences". What this means, is that instead of theorizing about what people prefer, you look at what they actually choose in reality.
When given a choice between migrating to urban factory life, or remaining on the farm to endure rural poverty, people have historically overwhelmingly chose to migrate to the cities.
they don't. Their loans are insured and they're too big to fail. And if all else fails the ruling class takes care of their own. How do you think Trump survived multiple bankruptcies and bad business decisions and always came out a millionaire?
The world does not operate on fairness. The sooner you accept that the sooner we can start actually fixing things.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Given that the USSR imploded spectacularly after bankrupting themselves accomplishing all that, I don't think the USSR is a good example.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.