Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

[don]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

The best and most useful definition of monopoly is the state of concentration reached where price competition is essentially over, replaced by competition for market share between a handful of large corporations. It heralds the rise of advertising as an outlet for traditional investment capital which has fewer places to go in a monopoly environment.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

The best and most useful definition of monopoly is the state of concentration reached where price competition is essentially over, replaced by competition for market share between a handful of large corporations. It heralds the rise of advertising as an outlet for traditional investment capital which has fewer places to go in a monopoly environment.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/dai...t-outage.print

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

I assume you're saying you believe private property is a Natural Right handed down from God a la John Locke. Even then, there's a social contract component once money comes into the picture and theological components against letting surplus spoil and starving out the poor through property ownership. That's the basis of the Two Treatises.

Regardless, let's say you do believe that you own yourself as private property, like any other slab of beef or slave on the auction block at the slave market.

And let's say from there that you believe you own the fruits of your labor since God granted man dominion in Genesis. Why would you not also own the fruits of your intellectual labor? Is your brain not part of you? Are your thoughts not your own? Do you not have the same right to intellectual labor as you do physical labor?

These are excellent questions and I appreciate the engagement. The answers, in order, are that you do own the fruits of your intellectual labor, your brain is a part of you, your thoughts are your own (though ideas can be shared at very little cost), and you do have the same right to [the fruits of and the effort of] intellectual labor as you do to for physical labor. However, none of these matters can ethically (or practically) be used to thwart another from deriving on their own or learning of through other means your idea (as the domain of the mind is fairly private and may be influenced by many, but only controlled by one person), nor can it be ethically used to stop the creation of an object either entirely based upon your idea or based on an improvement, modification, or permutation of your idea by others, regardless of how that idea came to find its way into the minds of others. As a practical matter, defining exactly what you can deny others the ability to do based upon you making a certain discovery is arbitrary and can be absurd.

To clarify why you simultaneously have a right to the fruits of your intellectual labor yet have no ethical right to prevent others from enjoying the fruits of their labor (even if a blatant copy of your idea), is that the fruits of your intellectual labor are specifically the actual idea itself and the opportunity to exploit the world's ignorance of your idea. Failing to exploit the advantage you create for yourself by "being first" does not entitle you to use men with guns to stop others from working, just as failing to exploit the resources you own in any physical sense as effectively as someone does not entitle you to be able to halt the exploitation of their resources.

If you create an object, can you patent creation itself? If you create an object out of iron, can you patent all metalwork? Obviously these are not recent discoveries, but in the course of patent law there are a number of cases where the arbitrary legal nature of the act of denying people the ability to create things has been taken to absurd extremes. The Wright brothers created aircraft which utilized wing-warping as the means to effect controlled flight, yet the effect of their patents were to de facto outlaw controlled flight itself except through license.

Imitating someone or their work is not a form of theft. You do not deprive someone of their idea by utilizing their idea--all you deprive them of is the opportunity for monopoly of their idea. You seem to be against monopolies (evidenced by you casting them in negative light and defending assertions that capitalism and/or a free market can not only create them but encourage them), yet being in favor of intellectual property rights is, in reality, being in favor of (possibly temporary) monopolies. That is a seemingly contradictory position to hold. Perhaps you make an exception for someone who has "earned" such a monopoly privilege?

Of course a free and unfettered market would have laws. You need contract laws. You need laws banning theft and fraud. You need laws establishing a medium of exchange. In the end of the day, you probably even need a couple naval groups to keep tariffs out, ensure trade, and deter piracy. As they like to say in the service, "Freedom isn't free."

There is no free market in a vacuum. Never has been. Never will be. It always comes with a government attached.

So I don't see to much point in arguments that begin, "Well, if laws just did not exist, then..."

That doesn't mean you can't take on laws or regulations you feel are wrong or unnecessary as they come up.

A truly free and unfettered market, at least by the definition I am using, means that there is no political transaction between people and there are exclusively economic or social transactions between people. A truly free and unfettered market, in order to actually be truly free, must be free from all laws which regulate or affect the market (what else would a free market be free from?). No contract laws, no laws against theft or deceit, etc. Obviously this condition almost assuredly can't happen and is perfectly theoretical, but it doesn't negate its usefulness as a principle or from a philosophical perspective. It's an "ideal" if you want to call it that, similar to utilizing "massless, frictionless pulleys of zero radius" in the study of elementary physics to see the bigger picture items of work, mechanical advantage, and etc. (As an aside, a purely free market can theoretically function and include regulation, but not via the law. Perfectly voluntary regulation by means of brands, reputation, and the relationships between supply, demand, and prices serve to keep markets regular and would still be in effect to various degrees in a purely free market. However, this digression is not pertinent and not the point I'm trying to make.)

Laws which cover exclusively the "no harm" principle, depending on how you define it and who you ask, can turn a purely free market society into a capitalist one--essentially any society where political power is used almost exclusively to outlaw harm and protect all economic activity (i.e. contract law) can be considered a fairly pure capitalist society. In other words, a capitalist society is a society which protects the formation of capital, and a free market society is a society based upon markets solely and free of laws. But these distinctions aren't necessary for the points I've been making. American laws reach far beyond that scope and, to varying degrees, restrict economic activity. Can a society be a free-market society when so many markets (some drugs, some foods, some sex services, some weapons, virtually all very cheap labor, etc.) are outright illegal or very heavily restricted? Can a society be a capitalist society when so many laws exist to restrict the formation of capital in and entrance into so many markets (i.e. licensing of all kinds)?

Specifically, monopolies exist largely because it is government policy that they exist. The monopolist is protected from competition directly by government policy within that monopolist's market, or indirectly through necessary secondary markets. There need not be laws overtly stating "Time Warner Cable shall be the only cable provider in Corpus Christi" for TWC to be the monopolist in the Corpus Christi cable market as a direct result of government policy.

This isn't an unfair game at all. Name a monopoly you think exists without the aid of some law which restricts competition in its relevant markets, and anyone will likely be able to point towards the law which restricts that monopoly's competition.

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

How did public policy create the AT&T monopoly on phone service? Activities which have large economies of scale can become monopolies without any political/legal action. If AT&T had raised rates too much, competition might have appeared. But the difficulty of putting an an alternative network of phone lines would have given them lots of margin to play with.

Regional railroads might have been in a simlar state before autos arrived.

That is the textbook case, and yes it is true that large capital barriers to entry can tend towards some monopoly. However, as markets develop and "mature" it is almost impossible for a monopoly to exist for very long without the aid of governments. AT&T or "Ma Bell" essentially formed as the market for telephones was under rapid development, and it metastasized as a government sanctioned monopoly ironically as a result of anti-trust efforts in 1913.

Theoretically, if a private enterprise were to assemble the capital for something big enough, like a space ladder, there likely would be a monopoly for an indefinite period of time. These large accumulations of capital do occur on smaller scales in smaller markets, and the risk of a long-running monopoly is accordingly much smaller.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Ghent12: I agree with you generally that IP protections go on for too long. But I don't see another practical way to do it just yet other than to keep IP law, but shorten the timeframe. Otherwise, what's to prevent you from copying Star Wars, changing one scene slightly, and selling it for $1 per copy the day after it comes out? What's to stop you from taking all of the Windows code and putting out an operating system that's identical with a line or two different in the background and selling it to IBM clones for cut rate prices? Or what's to stop Dell from copying it and just putting it out as it's own? Clearly there needs to be something there. It's not fair otherwise.

Obviously this condition almost assuredly can't happen and is perfectly theoretical, but it doesn't negate its usefulness as a principle or from a philosophical perspective

This was the same argument that Marxism used. And so I'm very, very wary of it.

Name a monopoly you think exists without the aid of some law which restricts competition in its relevant markets, and anyone will likely be able to point towards the law which restricts that monopoly's competition.

I'll say it for the third time: Name a market you think exists without the aid of some law which protects private property and establishes relevant markets, and anyone will likely be able to point towards the law that allows free market competition.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

"Remove the safety nets" and people will find jobs "to some extent". And the rest? What happens with the safety nets gone? I wonder what your acceptable success rate is.

You might ask what happens to "the rest" after minimum wage laws increase and bring new people into the ranks of the permanently unemployable.

Enough of the poor in America live in poverty by choice as to make my statement valid. You can misconstrue what I've said as much as you want, but the facts speak for themselves--when welfare is reduced, people suddenly find jobs as if by magic. People often take care of themselves pretty effectively, ...

Thank you for not rising to my pokes and keeping things civil. I apologize for my tone.

But, respectfully, some of the things you posted sound to me more like hardcore belief in an ideology than thoughtful solutions. Yes, people often find a way to survive during true hardship. But other people die. And people are softer, more numerous and less cooperative than they were in, say, the Great Depression era.

Removing the safety nets would encourage some fraction of the unemployed to take any job for any wage. But I don't see how hungry workers and lower wages creates 10's of millions of jobs for unskilled workers. DOING WHAT???

The only job growth I see in this scenario is private security and prison guards.

[Polish_Silver]

Getting People to work

You can only throw away the welfare state if you also throw away the various forms of working "protection" enacted in law. The major protection afforded by the law is to protect people from employment.

With the abolishment of the minimum wage, labor laws, and the various forms of social safety nets, you will see a huge calamity immediately, followed by coping and then ultimately thriving as people adjust to the new normal. . . .
Throwing away the welfare state and seeing the initial reaction doesn't prove that some people have been replaced to some degree. All it would prove is that some people are accustomed to not needing to do anything meaningful to survive. . ..
e.

It this is correct, what country has used this policy? Any historical examples?

Many of those unemployed now I would not want in my house as a nanny, though as lawn mower they might be acceptable.

I have been around homeless people and some will just not fit in due to chronic mental illness: schizophrenia, manic-depression, etc.

On the other hand, I agree that the system discourages some capable people from working. The only viable solution I see is to make work a better alternative than welfare, by subsidizing low wage work.

Countries with no safety net usually have tons of beggars. Taiwan is the only one I have seen that doesn't have this problem, and they do have some beggars. I doubt that the US could replicate Taiwan's policies. Taiwan has these advantages:

1) strong extended families
2) minimal regulations and taxes
3) highly cost effective health care.
4) low cost living alternatives
5) mild climate (no need for heating in winter)


It's somewhat like the argument that, if you take away the humane society, all the stray dogs will find owners.

[Polish_Silver]

In the beginning!

. . .


In the beginning there were hunter-gatherers. They lived like they were on a permanent camping/hunting trip. Carrying a lot of extra stuff was a pain in the ass. They didn't have private property. They didn't own land. They didn't have law. Everything was shared within the tribe. Just like you might share everything in your house with your family without charging them any money now.

Then came the agricultural revolution. And people grew crops. But to do this they had to stay in one spot. And they had to protect that spot. Staying put let them generate and store surplus food. The farmland was held in common and food and everything else was shared. But the surplus could be traded with other tribes outside. The beginning of the gift/reciprocity economy formed.

And so the seeds were sown with those first fields for governments and trade both. Warriors needed to protect an exclusive geographic area from other men and other animals. Surplus existed for the first time and allowed pre-market gift-style trading. All because people learned how to farm.

So law and trade arrive around the same time.

Both as natural as farming ever was for man.

The two go together like peas and carrots.

I think that's an excellent starting point for thinking about economics and our responsibility to each other.

You didn't mention how the agricultural revolution led to gender inequality, inheritance of social status, plague diseases, sexual repression, and 10 other things. But that's a matter for full length books. Empathy is the only thing keeping us going, tempering the dynamics of both Darwinism and capitalism.

[Woodsman]

Re: Getting People to work

It this is correct, what country has used this policy? Any historical examples?

Czarist Russia had a good run while it lasted.

[Woodsman]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

...The only job growth I see in this scenario is private security and prison guards.

Surely men of a certain organizational bent would thrive.

[don]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Is the 'Huxley Period' over?

[flintlock]

Re: Maintenance robots

Was talking to a customer yesterday about his company. Seems they use automatic welders. Set up a track and the welding machine just runs about doing it's business in fuel storage tanks, buildings, etc. Pretty amazing what tech there is out there today. He said they are not that much quicker than humans after set up time is considered, but more precise, can work longer hours, and don't get sick or lay out of work.

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Thank you for not rising to my pokes and keeping things civil. I apologize for my tone.

But, respectfully, some of the things you posted sound to me more like hardcore belief in an ideology than thoughtful solutions. Yes, people often find a way to survive during true hardship. But other people die. And people are softer, more numerous and less cooperative than they were in, say, the Great Depression era.

Removing the safety nets would encourage some fraction of the unemployed to take any job for any wage. But I don't see how hungry workers and lower wages creates 10's of millions of jobs for unskilled workers. DOING WHAT???

The only job growth I see in this scenario is private security and prison guards.

It is very hard to see what isn't current reality. Technically it's impossible, of course, but with enough consideration we can visualize what might be likely to happen.

Let's start off with the case of the unskilled worker. To clarify, no such entity exists by real definitions because in order to be a worker you must apply some labor skill, so let's call people who might normally be called unskilled workers a more accurate term: very low-skilled workers. These people have very distinct advantages in the labor market of the United States, and the threat they pose to higher-skilled workers in established markets is the reason why it is illegal for very low-skilled workers to be employed at wage rates generally commensurate with their skill level. The term "skills" is very broad, so it can be useful to list some examples of skills such as: the ability to be punctual, the ability to speak English and to what degree (or any other language), the ability to do any of the myriad levels of physical labor to include bending over to pick up a dropped pen all the way to lifting heavy crates and relocating them, the ability to follow instructions to any degree of exactness, and so forth. Things you might not normally think of as skills are actually lacking in a number of people which is why the term "unskilled worker" is even in your parlance.

As an example of the threat posed to highly-skilled workers by low-skilled ones, if you need a good-sized hole dug then you can hire a highly-skilled machine operator who is licensed, bonded, insured, and pays his dues to the local union chapter. Alternatively, if we were to scrap the laws originally designed to keep black and Polish people out of the labor market (namely the minimum wage laws), you could hire a dozen very low-skilled workers with shovels for probably less than half the price.

Now you might wonder how people would be able to survive on such a low amount of income as would be earned by wages commensurate with a very low skill level, but that is a problem best solved by the people in that situation. Various techniques are universally utilized, such as minimizing living space (i.e. stuffing a dozen or more people into a dwelling "meant" for a single family), carpooling, and so forth. These techniques are used by most teenagers if they are capable of finding work because they may seek an income while benefitting from their parents' transportation and living situation. The huge benefit to people who are able to work, even in jobs requiring very little skill, is that all of these jobs will impart additional skills and "resumé bullets" to those who work on them. The ability to "live efficiently" (a rather cynical but accurate description of, for example, immigrant family situations) required during periods where one is only able to command the wages of a very low-skilled worker can actually impart some valuable skills on these individuals as well.

Of course it would be a great Kumbaya moment if everyone could simply get a paycheck and live well no matter what they do for a living, no matter how well they do it, and no matter what their skill level is. However, that cannot be a sustainable reality (except in absolute poverty like in hunter-gatherer days). If you want to improve the quality of life of human beings, you must have incentives for each individual to improve their own lot in life. Poor people in America aren't poor because they don't have money, and they don't stay poor because they lack income or skills. The poor in America are that way either from "bad luck" circumstances out of their control or through decisions of their own making, and those who stay in poverty almost always remain in that state because they lack the willpower to live differently. The preceding might not be a complete description of the situation, but those statements are absolutely true given that the contrapositives are invariably true.

The worst enemies of the poor in this country are those who drone on about how bad the poor have it, how the game is rigged against them, and how the poor need help. Is that something you would do to your child? "Give up, your efforts are useless, I'll provide for you your entire life." If you're going to tell the truth to poor people, like that the game actually is rigged against them, then you need to tell them the whole truth, meaning that you need to add that there is a way out through their own effort.

The following is edited for clarity:
Now we find ourselves in a very cynical situation where politicians (mostly Democrats) poison the well and have created a self-licking ice cream cone for the votes of large numbers of "the downtrodden," and the people who find themselves on a steady diet of this cynicism about their life and situation are trapped socially, economically, and politically by, respectively, those who tell them they shouldn't bother, those policies of welfare which disincentivize efforts to escape poverty, and those politicians who pander and reinforce both aspects of the poverty trap.

As a more concrete example, ask yourself what a poor black family of four (a mother and three children ages 5, 15, and 17) could do with an extra $2200 (pre-tax) a year. That's how much is being kept from them purely and exclusively by minimum wage and child labor laws when their 15-year-old and 17-year-old can't find work for 10 weeks during the summer earning $5 and $6 an hour, respectively, for 20 hours a week. That's a slightly bigger apartment, a second (quite used) car, a tutor, a babysitter for the youngest, healthier food, or any number of other things which that family (or more likely the mother) decides might improve their lot in life.

The reason for that example is that it is illustrative of the situation faced by innumerable poor families and, frankly, more likely among black families with a female head of household. Youth unemployment is high, and black youth unemployment is higher still. The old racists who passed the minimum wage laws would be so proud of the Democrats and the Occupy Wall Street crowd today, not to mention a lot of Republicans.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Now we find ourselves in a very cynical situation where politicians (mostly Democrats) own whole plantations of voterstock

Really? Really? It's 2014. Those types of references to black folk were already wholly inappropriate 100 years ago.

[don]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Now we find ourselves in a very cynical situation where politicians (mostly Republicans) own whole cohorts of senior white males.