
Originally Posted by
icewendigo
So there are people that dont think technological unemployment is a reality.
Lets establish the fact that new jobs are created by technology, new types of jobs, Im not saying that is not the case, and certainly its good and provides people with a greater array of activities.
I'll also reiterate that I favor as much tech and automation as possible, and do not consider technology to be a problem, on the contrary, it highlights what is in my opinion
the systemic problems of our archaic socio-economic system which uses money, hierarchy and secrecy, though in this case the way we use money and
rely on a wage for it is the part that is highlighted as problematic.
So tech creates new types of jobs. But, does it create unemployment?
For tech to, not create unemployment, it would have to create as much or more jobs than it replaces.
Does it? More than it replaces? Really?
It appears to me, that a new technology of automation can create jobs over time, but make obsolete a Huge number of (now useless) jobs extremely rapidly.
One possibility is that, once the price of something like say..... clothing gets to be less, the extra money a person would have spent to replace their shoes gets spent on something else they previously couldn't afford.
Look at how much stuff an average person owns in the USA. Did they typically own that much stuff 20 years ago? Presumably the higher standard of living requires more production.
So if hours of labor per item produced is less, but more total items are being made, then that should cancel out. The total number of jobs would only diminish if total production remained the same. But total production isn't remaining the same. It's going up.
If jobs, viable jobs that generate "money" (which can nonetheless be totally, utterly, completely useless for society btw) are created gradually, and job loses take effect rapidly on a massive scale, you will have unemployment, for a time(with potential disastrous consequences because not only do these people rely on working to get the products and services society CAN produce anyway, but other people also rely on THEM to buy stuff, which can lead to a situation where the products are stagnating and available, from house, to food, to anything, while people are deprived because they are no longer needed to provide these products and services).
It's true that we don't want change to happen rapidly. It's fine if a small percentage of the population is constantly getting uprooted and needing to find another job. It's very bad if a substantial percentage of the population ever finds itself in that situation all at once.
You think there's no unemployment now? That the economy is tanking? Just imagine that useless jobs are eliminated by the millions and that jobs that can be automated would be, you think the economy is in a recession (or depression) now? Imagine if the millions of workers could be send to the unemployment lines and soup kitchens, there's no way in hell the technology would find "jobs" for all these people overnight, to me it is crystal clear the economy (of our outdated system) would completely collapse overnight, worse than the Great Depression.
The main problem is that resources don't always extend further just because labor extends further. If a factory is suddenly able to produce 200 automobiles using the same amount of labor that previously was required to produce 20 automobiles - and resources are not a problem - then it would lower its price and maybe sell 10 times as many cars - thus keeping all of its workers employed.
However, probably the cost of Iron, electricity, and stuff like that is still an issue. That's where the obsolete workers lose their jobs really. The percentage of the final price tag that corresponds with labor may go down, but the percentage that corresponds with resources stays the same (or goes up if production is increasing to levels that put a strain on those resources.)
One big reason why the rich are getting richer is very likely because many of them own or control natural resources and derive their income from that. But the poor only have their labor to offer.