Minimum Wage: What's the Other Argument?

[W|M]

Rich people are certainly becoming richer

 

[Vectors]

I don't think you're properly comprehending how absolutely brutal that transitional phase is going to be.

What's wrong with the developed Western world hitting a point where the Gini coefficient is worse than 0.5 for generations leaving most people in countries destitute with perhaps just enough bread and circuses to keep the from engaging in armed insurrection?

 

[El_Machinae]

Nor do I. If it is brutal though, I suspect it would be the Luddites that would make it so by resisting the transition.

It's certainly a threat, though the Luddites greatest risk is to cause a delay in growth. I am not sure you're forwarding an alternative mechanism by which the aggregate pain will be less, though. Remember, layoffs precede pricedrops. It's not obvious how the deflation will outpace the drop in wages.

 

[metalhead]

Also, I don't know how exports would work if we don't still have currency and charge money for things.

 

[rah]

Naw things will continue like they do now. Manufacturing jobs will continue to disappear and service jobs will increase. While some service jobs will automate more will be created. As the rich get more wealthy there will be an even bigger demand for service. The rich like lording it over humans so those jobs will never be automated.

 

[Vectors]

Naw things will continue like they do now. Manufacturing jobs will continue to disappear and service jobs will increase. While some service jobs will automate more will be created. As the rich get more wealthy there will be an even bigger demand for service. The rich like lording it over humans so those jobs will never be automated.

How much do you really care that the thing you order from in a fast food joint is a person?

 

[civvver]

How much do you really care that the thing you order from in a fast food joint is a person?

I don't care one bit, machines would probably get my order right more often tbh. We have self server vending at my work, you go grab your stuff, scan it, pay. Mcdonalds could do the same thing, order a big mac, it comes out a chute and you scan it and pay.

 

[onejayhawk]

Rich people are certainly becoming richer

Is that a matter of faith or do you have evidence?

J

 

[Lexicus]

Is that a matter of faith or do you have evidence?

J

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/21/report-global-inequality-continues-to-rise.html

 

[metalhead]

J, if you don't know without needing proof that the rich continue to get richer, than I really would suggest you find a different media bubble. The current one you're in is just horrible.

 

[cardgame]

Is that a matter of faith or do you have evidence?

J

It is widely known, by everyone, ever.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Or we go through a brief period of hardship as with any transitional phase in history, and allow automation to become so prevalent that the average person won't need capital to purchase goods. Eventually, if we allow it, we will be able to create machines that can produce just about anything we could want with zero input from humans. Even maintenance, programming, and production of the machines can be handled by other machines. And since we won't have to pay the machines to do all this work for us, that means the cost of goods will effectively drop to zero. After all, machines don't have profit motive.

Sounds like a horrendous crossover between Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Terminator movies, and the conditions that led to the Butlerian Jihad in Dune (the real series, not the KJA/BH stuff).

So while the machines are doing everything, what are the humans doing? And at what point do the machines decide the humans are an infestation and decide to exterminate us?

I'm talking about a world in which machines run and produce everything so there is no longer a need for any type of currency to exist. How is that individual profit?

Unless humans go through some kind of fundamental and lasting change in our thinking - not just intellectually, but at gut level - there will always be some kind of currency. It's really annoying how people keep saying there's no money in Star Trek. There certainly is, if you understand that one careless line in a movie really meant that Starfleet, and the major worlds of the Federation don't use cash. But no advanced society can function without some kind of economy. Even on Voyager, cut off from Federation services, developed an internal ship's economy, where the currencies were replicator rations and holodeck time. They did a lot of old-fashioned bartering, too.

So considering that machines do most of the heavy work in that setting... and they still not only have an economy, but some regional currencies (gold-pressed latinum is the one used by pretty much everyone on Deep Space Nine, even by the Federation citizens stationed there)... currency really isn't something it would be so easy to get rid of.

Nor do I. If it is brutal though, I suspect it would be the Luddites that would make it so by resisting the transition.

I'm someone who tends to resist adopting new technologies until I really need it. Only the demise of my beloved Smith-Corona electric typewriter (I used it so much, it literally wore out past fixing) got me to try computers. Even so, it was still 14 years after that when I finally got an internet connection at home.

I don't consider myself a "Luddite". I just consider myself someone who uses the technology that works for the job that needs doing, at a level with which I'm comfortable. Of course that's not to say that if someone were to perfect the holodeck, that I wouldn't enjoy programs of my favorite books or TV shows, or spend time in a favorite vacation spot.

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion" would be an optimistic outcome.

Mentats are thought of as "human computers" - a necessary adaptation in the wake of the Butlerian Jihad that did away with anything resembling AI.

That's a line from the Lynch movie, but I don't recall it being in the actual Dune novel.

I think it's pretty obvious and I've already said it several times. If machines run everything and produce everything, then production costs drop to zero. Machines also have no profit motive, so it's not like they are going to charge us a price for the goods and services they provide. So with everything freely available, there is no longer any need for currency.

Also, when I say machines will run everything, I mean everything. They will be the owners and operators of all the corporations, and they will be the governing body for every nation. Basically, all humans would have to do in this world that I envision is exist. Beyond that, people would be free to do whatever they damn well please as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others.

Exist and do what? You're describing a dystopia I would never want to live in. What would machines know of the human connection to nature?

How much do you really care that the thing you order from in a fast food joint is a person?

I'd prefer a person. You can talk to people if there's a question that needs asking. That's the same reason I prefer to be served by a real person in the bank.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, you nailed the idea then Valka. I couldn't come up with a more accurate picture for the thought.

 

[Hygro]

I'm a huge, HUGE believer in the consumer surplus. It doesn't pay the bills, but it's basically the source of all our wealth.

Indeed, it's the wealth the bills pay for.

 

[sophie]

But no advanced society can function without some kind of economy.

Do they?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Do they?

Do they what? Are you saying that there is an advanced society that functions without an economy?

 

[sophie]

Do they what? Are you saying that there is an advanced society that functions without an economy?

I mean do they have to? Money is a means to fairly assign goods in a world where scarcity exists while reducing the liquidity problems a barter economy would have.

What we're talking about though, whether through replicators, automation, or a fully computerized/algorithm-derived command economy would be one in which none of those challenges exist. With no scarcity there's no need for money - everybody gets what they want, when they want immediately. With a perfectly functioning command economy there's no demand - needs are identified and met before they arise. In either case money is unnecessary, and there's (theoretically) no corruption or inefficiencies muddying up the system.

Just because something exists today, and has existed for a long time, doesn't mean it has to necessarily exist. People once thought Kings were an intrinsic, inseparable part of a stable, functioning government and we've got by just fine for the last 3 centuries without one.

 

[Lexicus]

I think you are incorrect about the function of money (it couldn't have arisen to deal with the complexity of a barter economy, because there was never any such thing as a barter economy) - but you may be right that money would disappear under conditions such as those you've laid out here.
The most I can say is I don't think it is so straightforward as "money arose to fulfill functions x, y, and z, and when these functions are obsolete money will disappear." Even when functionalism can be applied to cultural and social objects, they tend to take on a life of their own, and to persist long after the original function is obviated.

 

[sophie]

Well yes. This is why I think this period is going to be so traumatic. We're not talking a simple adjustment of the system: we're talking a total paradigmatic shift here. A complete realignment of ideology happening at a global scale. I think what you're describing - the system continuing even when its effectiveness seems increasingly farcical - is more or less what's happening now. We're still in the early stages, but even now we can see the system contorting itself into bizarre shapes to maintain the status quo. We can see it in certain sectors, particularly things like the music industry and software where value can at times be difficult to quantify and scarcity - bandwidth and server demands aside - isn't really much of an issue. We can kind of see it with food too, where the world produces more than enough to feed everyone, and logistics are more or less good enough to do so, but the system doesn't allow this to happen resulting in massive wastage. We're in a period of ever-growing wealth inequality, and that trend is going to continue as automation empowers the automators at the expense of everybody else which will eventually create a world where capitalism simply does not work, and at that point, something's gotta break.

 

[warpus]

What we're talking about though, whether through replicators, automation, or a fully computerized/algorithm-derived command economy would be one in which none of those challenges exist. With no scarcity there's no need for money - everybody gets what they want, when they want immediately.

I can think of a couple exceptions to this. There would still be for example a limited amount of space at {place X}. If you want to go to Machu Picchu on vacation, how will you pay for it? Not everyone can go - there is only so much space available per day. Isn't that scarcity, implying that you will need to exchange something of value in order to book your spot?

Also, what about services? Those are scarce, limited by the number of people who are able to perform the task and are willing to do so.