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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."
Almost as intelligent as her recent grilling of Wells Fargo...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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"
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.
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.