But you said "It is never clear 'who is the best performer'" which contradicts this line of reasoning. Do you now stand by that assertion, or refute it?
No, I stand by it. I'm saying that there is no such thing as a "best performer" in general; it's not a well-defined concept. The only thing that there is is the actual salary that an employee and an employer negotiate. Past performance is irrelevant to that. The only thing that is relevant as far as performance is guesses about future performance. And most of that salary isn't going to be determined by performance at all, but supply and demand.
I'm not assuming that at all, but I get it, you don't think automation, robots or expert networks are going to change much of anything when it comes to the labor market.
They are going to change things massively, as they always have. But people are capable of adaptation to changing labor market conditions, as centuries of experience show.
However, while capable of adaptation, people don't like change and uncertainty, so if the government gives them a way of avoiding change and adaptation (e.g., by limiting automation or paying workers deemed incapable of adaptation), they are not going to adapt.
If you tell people with authority that they are helpless and doomed, that it isn't really their responsibility, and that the government is going to provide for them, you have created a self-fulfilling prophecy; and that is going to be ugly.
You mean Obama's the one paying all those Wall Street bonuses?
Why would I care about that? I care about the fact that Obama and his predecessors (both Republican and Democrat, but Democrats have generally been worse offenders) take my tax dollars and hand them to Wall St.
Damn, no wonder we got us a deficit, amirite?
Yes, you are right: the massive government handouts to corporations, Wall St., and other special interests are a major part of our deficits.
first- we are feeling the impact of climate change
No, we aren't "feeling" it, we are merely able to detect it. And if things keep going at this rate, we really don't have anything to worry about for centuries to come.
. Within our lifetimes you're going to see a situation where less than 10% of the population can add more value than it costs to employ them
That's assuming they stay with their original careers. But the whole point of having a labor market is that people learn those skills and take those jobs where they are most needed.
The one thing that really does tend to mess things up is all the regulations for full time employees. I pay more in mandatory health insurance, real estate taxes, and auto licensing fees than I pay for all other living expenses combined. And for my employer to hire me must have cost tens of thousands of dollars, plus many thousands more per year in mandatory fees and taxes.
That will still mean nearly a billion people working, but what exactly are the other nine billion going to do?
Who knows? Dog walkers. Game designers. Space explorers. Massage therapists. Prostitutes. Garden designers. Painters. Dancers. Psychiatrists. Nannies. Body guards. Personal fitness instructors. Personal secretaries. There are tons of jobs that only a human can do, and lots of people would love these kinds of personalized services but can't afford them because they are competing against other employers.
What part of "40% of the workers make less than $15/hr" do you not get?
Oh, I get it alright. It's you who doesn't seem to understand what "worker" actually refers to.
The current minimum wage is less than half of your "solid, middle-class income" of $15/hr.
And if you're going to have a minimum wage at all, it should indeed be far below a solid middle class income. You can't legislate everybody to be above average. Math, you know.
And if you add up the incomes of everyone making minimum wage in America it comes to a little more than half as much as the bonuses that get paid out to Wall Street bankers in one year.
And I should give a fuck... why?
And don't forget, Wall Street bankers don't produce a goddamned thing.
No, and I would greatly prefer if people the Clintons and Obama didn't hand these people trillions of tax payer dollars. But other than that, I really don't care how much money they make.
This entire discussion is based around the idea that this time is different. If automation of the service sector
"Automation of the service sector" is meaningless. There is an infinite number of services that can be provided, and they can't all be automated. If you could really replace every single service sector job with robots, you'd have sentient androids, and in that case, they would probably value their own labor and become market participants.
This entire discussion is based around the idea that this time is different.
The discussion started with "automated factories wipe out all the jobs". Obviously, they can't. In fact, as far as the US is concerned, that has already happened, even if "automated" means "ship to China". Now it shifted to automating everything.
Fact is, we don't need to imagine what happens when a tiny number of people control the means of production, we've had that under feudalism, monarchy, socialism, and other totalitarian forms of government. Never in history have these horrid forms of government been the consequence of capitalism or automation. They have usually been the result of either a real or imaginary military or security threat, or the result of mob rule.
Actually no. There are infinite wants, but a diminishing marginal utility of wealth. There is infinite demand for labor only at price zero.
Yes, and as material goods become cheaper and cheaper due to automated factories, that demand keeps going up.
You're confusing political systems with economic systems.
Not at all; that was the error I was pointing out. When all production is fully automated and a small percentage of the population holds the rest hostage, this ceases to be an economic problem, and hence a problem of capitalism.
There will still be plenty of individuals with things to trade after the laborers with less value than robots starve to death.
First of all, you need to read up on comparative advantage. Second, I find it fascinating how people who claim to be concerned about the well being of the working classes start by assuming that the working classes are worthless idiots.
People have never starved to death because their jobs were eliminated by automation; most simply find better jobs instead.
This was a statement you said was so ridiculous as to be laughable, so put up or shut up.
I did: The claim is bullshit because it computes meaningless numbers ["hourly wage"] for a meaningless group of people ["all workers"].
The NELP paper is misusing that number in its own analysis, by multiplying by the nominal number of work hours to arrive at an annual full time income and then reasoning about that.
Furthermore, if the number meant what the NELP paper implies it means, it completely contradicts their argument for raising the minimum wage to $15/h: if in some sense "40% of workers" already make that much money, then $15/h is a solid, middle-class income, not a sign of poverty.
If you think the number has meaning, why don't you clearly state what that meaning is.
No, I'm not. In fact, currently_awake's premise is wrong. If all factories are automated, it will simply mean that everybody will work in non-manufacturing sectors and manufacturing becomes economically insignificant. Manufacturing already is only 12% of GDP in the US.
Labor does not represent 100% of cost. Even with perfect automation products will not be free.
Terms like "cost" and "free" don't make any sense when nobody has anything to trade.
My point is that geoskd's dire predictions are worthless:
The bad comes from what humanity will do when it reaches that stage. Instead of sharing the freedom and wealth that this state of affairs will bring, a small percentage of the population will benefit from it and capitalism will work to effectively exclude the vast majority of the population.
Capitalism requires a market. If most people are not market participants, then you don't have capitalism. Should "a small percentage of the population" hold the rest of the population hostage in that situation, that's not capitalism, it's simple totalitarianism.
But there is an even more basic error with geoskd's premise: when machines can make most of our material needs for free, labor won't lose any value. There is an infinite demand for labor.
Because we the people want an economy that serves us, NOT the other way around. That's the whole point of unions, in fact--to make sure that workers get a decent share of the wealth they produce.
There is nothing wrong in principle with private labor unions and voluntary union membership. During the early industrial era, when a large part of the workforce was unskilled factory work, they made sense.
But the idea that unions stand up for "we the people" and an economy that serves all Americans is ludicrous. Unions only ever represent their own members, and their job is to get the best deal they can for their members, regardless of the cost that imposes on society. Unions are special interest lobbying organizations, no different from individual big corporations.
For a large portion of the population, for the years from say 1950 until the late 1980's it was totally normal to get a job out of high school, to join a union associate with that job and to work that job until retirement, with a decent pension. This was not unusual for white collar (professional, non-union) positions either.
In 1950, Europe and Asia was in shambles and we were entering the Cold War. Of course, people had job security. Now, the US is facing a global competitive environment. We are also living in a world that is much more prosperous and peaceful, and we are benefiting enormously from that.
Long-term employees can benefit a company by providing deep knowledge of the organization and may benefit projects by understanding how thet fit in to the ethos of the culture.
Yes, and companies will do everything they can to retain such employees.
Maybe the 'stability' from 1950 to 1980 was the real 'aberration'
Correct.
and the constant changes driven by an influx of new workers is the real American norm
The constant changes are mostly driven by rapid technological innovation, which causes job descriptions and demand to change rapidly. But new jobs open up as fast as old ones disappear.
No. Translation: don't complain if companies invert and if places like Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore do better if we keep engaging in stupid economic policy.
Safe to say you've earned your shill pay today.
I sure hope so, my "shill pay" being the return on my retirement funds. I don't want to have to depend on social security just because selfish and stupid people like you wreck the American stock market.
You take it to mean the average corporate tax paid on profits for some subset of corporations. That number is so low because of massive handouts to corporations by politicians, often the same politicians who complain bitterly about corporations not paying enough. It's also largely irrelevant.
I'm talking about the marginal corporate tax rate plus the marginal taxes on capital gains and dividends; that is what matters for the competitiveness of the US.
50% truly is just something you pulled out of your arse.
this is part of that crazy right wing logic where up is down and black is white.
No, I was simply echoing the crazy black-and-white world view of the original article.
this is like that other idiots assertions that the environment is bad off because of regulations, and would be better if we eliminated them
I'm one of those idiots. Of course, "eliminating regulations" doesn't mean just getting rid of the EPA and regulations, it means replacing them with better, private mechanisms.
so completely disconnected from reality. it's such a load of bull.
I understand where you're coming from: I used to be a progressive and Democrat myself.
I thought you objected to politically-motivated reports.
Yes, I most certainly do. What I mean by that is that, based on its content, it's obvious Kleinbard's paper is political, not scientific. I didn't attack the paper for who wrote it. (Kleinbard doesn't consistently take progressive viewpoints.)
Says the guy who just cited tax foundation dot org.
I didn't "cite" it, which would imply that we are having an argument and I provided it as support for my side. I gave you a link to it because it provides a pretty clear explanation to you of an obvious and basic economic fact, namely that corporate profits are taxed not just as corporate taxes, but also as income. And someone's incentive to invest in corporations depends on what is left over after both taxes are applied.
Unluckily, with employers also taking advantage of political corruption through lobbying and bribing, workers are left having to fight on the same terms.
Yes, corporations, professional associations, and unions all engage in rent seeking. But justifying more handouts for workers by pointing to corporations makes the problem worse, because the corporations are going to come back and then demand more handouts for themselves. Furthermore, this isn't two opposing political forces; government handouts to both workers and corporations are primarily the doing of the same politicians.
They're still people who deserve control over their lifes. And they are professional in the sense that they negotiate individual contracts based on performance.
You gave the example, and it's a stupid one. The point is that there are two classes of organizations, one of which primarily lobbies, and the other primarily negotiates private contracts, and they are not at all the same, economically or politically.
That's self-contradictory. If it's not clear who is a better performer, then exactly how is labor unlike a commodity?
Unions assume that it makes sense to negotiate wages and working conditions for whole classes of workers. That is, they treat workers like iron or wheat, something whose quality is easily determined by a few parameters, and where buyers don't really care much about who they buy from.
When it comes to skilled workers, the value of that worker to a company depends on a great deal of detail of what the worker can provide and what the company needs. Wages and working conditions are set through individual negotiations because that's the only sensible way of setting them.
That's bullshit. If everything can be produced at zero cost, there is no scarcity and hence no money or economics at all. If there is oppression at that point, it's not due to capitalism.
Really, things getting produced cheaper is a universal good for humanity. Your thinking is the thinking of a Luddite.
Regulation does not help wages nor hurt it. If that were the case, then deregulation of the airline industry would have increased wages for pilots and air crews.
Airline deregulation deregulated the way trip prices, airline tickets, and airline routes are sold. It has next to nothing to do with the regulation of employment. (I would actually expect deregulation of the airline industry to decrease salaries for pilots, and employment regulations of pilots to further decrease their salaries.)
The reality is that regulation is the bogeyman
The reality is that you don't have the faintest idea of what you are talking about.
Slashdot Mirror
Even personal robocars can drop you off and then drive far away to park. That alone should help a great deal with congestion.
No, I stand by it. I'm saying that there is no such thing as a "best performer" in general; it's not a well-defined concept. The only thing that there is is the actual salary that an employee and an employer negotiate. Past performance is irrelevant to that. The only thing that is relevant as far as performance is guesses about future performance. And most of that salary isn't going to be determined by performance at all, but supply and demand.
They are going to change things massively, as they always have. But people are capable of adaptation to changing labor market conditions, as centuries of experience show.
However, while capable of adaptation, people don't like change and uncertainty, so if the government gives them a way of avoiding change and adaptation (e.g., by limiting automation or paying workers deemed incapable of adaptation), they are not going to adapt.
If you tell people with authority that they are helpless and doomed, that it isn't really their responsibility, and that the government is going to provide for them, you have created a self-fulfilling prophecy; and that is going to be ugly.
Why would I care about that? I care about the fact that Obama and his predecessors (both Republican and Democrat, but Democrats have generally been worse offenders) take my tax dollars and hand them to Wall St.
Yes, you are right: the massive government handouts to corporations, Wall St., and other special interests are a major part of our deficits.
No, we aren't "feeling" it, we are merely able to detect it. And if things keep going at this rate, we really don't have anything to worry about for centuries to come.
I have: vegetarian, bike most places, solar energy.
And I still think Obama is batshit crazy.
At this point, I'd rather vote for a Christian conservative pushing free markets than another progressive Democrat.
That's assuming they stay with their original careers. But the whole point of having a labor market is that people learn those skills and take those jobs where they are most needed.
The one thing that really does tend to mess things up is all the regulations for full time employees. I pay more in mandatory health insurance, real estate taxes, and auto licensing fees than I pay for all other living expenses combined. And for my employer to hire me must have cost tens of thousands of dollars, plus many thousands more per year in mandatory fees and taxes.
Who knows? Dog walkers. Game designers. Space explorers. Massage therapists. Prostitutes. Garden designers. Painters. Dancers. Psychiatrists. Nannies. Body guards. Personal fitness instructors. Personal secretaries. There are tons of jobs that only a human can do, and lots of people would love these kinds of personalized services but can't afford them because they are competing against other employers.
Oh, I get it alright. It's you who doesn't seem to understand what "worker" actually refers to.
And if you're going to have a minimum wage at all, it should indeed be far below a solid middle class income. You can't legislate everybody to be above average. Math, you know.
And I should give a fuck... why?
No, and I would greatly prefer if people the Clintons and Obama didn't hand these people trillions of tax payer dollars. But other than that, I really don't care how much money they make.
"Automation of the service sector" is meaningless. There is an infinite number of services that can be provided, and they can't all be automated. If you could really replace every single service sector job with robots, you'd have sentient androids, and in that case, they would probably value their own labor and become market participants.
The discussion started with "automated factories wipe out all the jobs". Obviously, they can't. In fact, as far as the US is concerned, that has already happened, even if "automated" means "ship to China". Now it shifted to automating everything.
Fact is, we don't need to imagine what happens when a tiny number of people control the means of production, we've had that under feudalism, monarchy, socialism, and other totalitarian forms of government. Never in history have these horrid forms of government been the consequence of capitalism or automation. They have usually been the result of either a real or imaginary military or security threat, or the result of mob rule.
Yes, and as material goods become cheaper and cheaper due to automated factories, that demand keeps going up.
Not at all; that was the error I was pointing out. When all production is fully automated and a small percentage of the population holds the rest hostage, this ceases to be an economic problem, and hence a problem of capitalism.
First of all, you need to read up on comparative advantage. Second, I find it fascinating how people who claim to be concerned about the well being of the working classes start by assuming that the working classes are worthless idiots.
People have never starved to death because their jobs were eliminated by automation; most simply find better jobs instead.
I did: The claim is bullshit because it computes meaningless numbers ["hourly wage"] for a meaningless group of people ["all workers"].
The NELP paper is misusing that number in its own analysis, by multiplying by the nominal number of work hours to arrive at an annual full time income and then reasoning about that.
Furthermore, if the number meant what the NELP paper implies it means, it completely contradicts their argument for raising the minimum wage to $15/h: if in some sense "40% of workers" already make that much money, then $15/h is a solid, middle-class income, not a sign of poverty.
If you think the number has meaning, why don't you clearly state what that meaning is.
No, I'm not. In fact, currently_awake's premise is wrong. If all factories are automated, it will simply mean that everybody will work in non-manufacturing sectors and manufacturing becomes economically insignificant. Manufacturing already is only 12% of GDP in the US.
Terms like "cost" and "free" don't make any sense when nobody has anything to trade.
My point is that geoskd's dire predictions are worthless:
Capitalism requires a market. If most people are not market participants, then you don't have capitalism. Should "a small percentage of the population" hold the rest of the population hostage in that situation, that's not capitalism, it's simple totalitarianism.
But there is an even more basic error with geoskd's premise: when machines can make most of our material needs for free, labor won't lose any value. There is an infinite demand for labor.
In 1950, Europe and Asia was in shambles and we were entering the Cold War. Of course, people had job security. Now, the US is facing a global competitive environment. We are also living in a world that is much more prosperous and peaceful, and we are benefiting enormously from that.
Yes, and companies will do everything they can to retain such employees.
Correct.
The constant changes are mostly driven by rapid technological innovation, which causes job descriptions and demand to change rapidly. But new jobs open up as fast as old ones disappear.
No. Translation: don't complain if companies invert and if places like Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore do better if we keep engaging in stupid economic policy.
I sure hope so, my "shill pay" being the return on my retirement funds. I don't want to have to depend on social security just because selfish and stupid people like you wreck the American stock market.
The term "effective" can have multiple meanings.
You take it to mean the average corporate tax paid on profits for some subset of corporations. That number is so low because of massive handouts to corporations by politicians, often the same politicians who complain bitterly about corporations not paying enough. It's also largely irrelevant.
I'm talking about the marginal corporate tax rate plus the marginal taxes on capital gains and dividends; that is what matters for the competitiveness of the US.
Not at all. It's quite straightforward actually:
http://taxfoundation.org/artic...
No, I was simply echoing the crazy black-and-white world view of the original article.
I'm one of those idiots. Of course, "eliminating regulations" doesn't mean just getting rid of the EPA and regulations, it means replacing them with better, private mechanisms.
I understand where you're coming from: I used to be a progressive and Democrat myself.
Yes, I most certainly do. What I mean by that is that, based on its content, it's obvious Kleinbard's paper is political, not scientific. I didn't attack the paper for who wrote it. (Kleinbard doesn't consistently take progressive viewpoints.)
I didn't "cite" it, which would imply that we are having an argument and I provided it as support for my side. I gave you a link to it because it provides a pretty clear explanation to you of an obvious and basic economic fact, namely that corporate profits are taxed not just as corporate taxes, but also as income. And someone's incentive to invest in corporations depends on what is left over after both taxes are applied.
Yes, corporations, professional associations, and unions all engage in rent seeking. But justifying more handouts for workers by pointing to corporations makes the problem worse, because the corporations are going to come back and then demand more handouts for themselves. Furthermore, this isn't two opposing political forces; government handouts to both workers and corporations are primarily the doing of the same politicians.
You gave the example, and it's a stupid one. The point is that there are two classes of organizations, one of which primarily lobbies, and the other primarily negotiates private contracts, and they are not at all the same, economically or politically.
You presented the facts in your link. I explained to you why your (and the article's) interpretation of those facts was wrong.
Ah, Donald Trump. I hope your hair is better than his, because your arguments certainly aren't.
Unions assume that it makes sense to negotiate wages and working conditions for whole classes of workers. That is, they treat workers like iron or wheat, something whose quality is easily determined by a few parameters, and where buyers don't really care much about who they buy from.
When it comes to skilled workers, the value of that worker to a company depends on a great deal of detail of what the worker can provide and what the company needs. Wages and working conditions are set through individual negotiations because that's the only sensible way of setting them.
The fruits of automation are always shared by all people.
Yes. Shareholders like you and me. That's where your retirement comes from.
Correct. They need to learn skills that make them useful to their fellow human beings. And a free market tells them what those skill are.
That's bullshit. If everything can be produced at zero cost, there is no scarcity and hence no money or economics at all. If there is oppression at that point, it's not due to capitalism.
Really, things getting produced cheaper is a universal good for humanity. Your thinking is the thinking of a Luddite.
Airline deregulation deregulated the way trip prices, airline tickets, and airline routes are sold. It has next to nothing to do with the regulation of employment. (I would actually expect deregulation of the airline industry to decrease salaries for pilots, and employment regulations of pilots to further decrease their salaries.)
The reality is that you don't have the faintest idea of what you are talking about.