Originally Posted By: sinij
I brought it up before, but here it is again. Increased productivity due to automation is reality today, soon automation multiplier will be big enough that couple system integration engineers will be able to out-produce 200-workers typical union shop of the last century.

What we do at this point is important, but not for the reasons you stated. Current trend is that all this increased productivity is get channeled into corporate profit. Engineers are not get paid more, they simply have jobs that allow them to live at a level of foreman from the example above. Investor class get disproportionate benefits from increasing productivity, while working class gets all the societal burden of the change. I don't understand how could you not see such outcome as problematic. Society, social contract, is that everyone has equal opportunity to partake in fruits of their labor, only some don't labor at all, and others have no opportunity whatsoever.




The first question we should be asking, is why the investor class as such reaps the benefits while the engineer does not. More "regulation" is not an answer here, leaving aside whether regulation is the "solution" for the moment - in this context I mean it is not the "answer" because I am talking about the actual factors that create the condition. In other words, we need to separate the "answer" to the question regarding the origins of the problem from the "solution" to the problem. So while more regulation may be a "solution" - I think first the answer to the question of why the status quo exists in the first place needs to be thoroughly understood.

I see the inability of people to prosper without the aid of "investor" classes , at least on a macro scale, as the result of said classes rigging the govt system. Not in terms of lack of opportunity, but in terms of govt interference. The interference comes in many shapes and sizes, from anti competitive regulations and laws (and no this is not an indictment against *all* regulations or laws) that are clearly designed to favor the connected, to subsidies and loans to the connected, to no-bid contracts, and so on and so forth.


Without coming to a concrete understanding of how the dynamics actually operate - I see no chance of proactively engineering a solution that is workable, let alone just or equitable. Other than simply withdrawing the level of interference.

Hayek propositioned that doing it is an utter impossibility, due to the scale of the contributing factors involved. He maintained that interference by govt was at best bumbling, and at worst cynical. (Note a couple of things here to keep this discussion on track - 1) Austrian economists do not actually argue for no regulation. Dumping toxic stuff in rivers for example should be illegal. But there are different types of regulation. -- 2) Hayek in particular advocated a social safety net. He did not think that there should be no social safety net, and in the same vein neither do I. )

I remain open to the possibility that Hayek might have been wrong - but it is going to take a plan that understands and accounts for *all* contributing factors and addresses *all* possible outcomes and side affects, at least as far as *all* can be ascertained.

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Secondly, I think you are missing the point regarding what I said in my earlier post. I think this highlights the fundamentally different way we view things. I am quite aware of the state of automation, and have a keen interest. I do not disagree with your general assessment.

Where we differ is in 2 key places.

The first being that as I said, you are being entirely subtractive. You assume that lost jobs mean that there can be no upsurge or replacements. Human nature tends to drive people to find new things to do. Much like the agricultural revolution, the information revolution might well show us for example (as long as cronyist govt does not prevent it) that new types of activities are profitable now that base manufactured materials costs are so low and labor so easy to come by. People find new ways to prosper, and build on what has come before. You often cannot tell what is going to happen, but in free societies something *always* happens.

People who got put out of work went to the cities to work in the heavy factory, eating the mass produced food they didnt have to make anymore. People who got put out of work in a heavy factory, went to an assembly line, using the refined materials that were now more efficiently made and machined to assemble more complex parts. And so on and so forth.

There are always ways to provide value, and people seek ways to find value. I just do not see half the population as having nothing to do, just because machines mass manufacture things on a larger scale. Plus that type of automation will probably be a net benefit for the USA, as the types of labor most significantly impacted will be developing world labor.

Plus there are many things that machines will not be able to do, at least anytime soon. And there are probably things we should never allow machines to do - but thats a different topic altogether.

Last edited by Derid; 10/10/12 03:27 PM.
For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)