Perils of the Economy of Plenty

[aggienaut]

   In 1811 the Luddite movement arose with the concern that technological labour-saving innovations would deprive people of work. Of course, now nearly 200 years later, people (mostly) still have jobs. And the Luddite's are dismissed as having been ridiculous.
   Back when I was an office peon in law offices, it often occured to me that nearly everything I did could probably be automated. Office automation is already a concept in use, but I really think in the not too distant future most office peons could be rendered redundant completely. And thats a fair number of jobs.
   And for example, I could easily picture all the fast food workers of the world being replaced by automated fastfoodbots. In fact, I really think that its not unimaginable, and may in fact be inevitable, that most jobs today will eventually be replaced by automated systems.
   And so the question is, what then, will humans do?

   I see two possibilities. (A) all the humans will eventually be pushed into arts and crafts; (B) the alarmingly communist solution, and I am not a communist, but if everything was automated so there was no need for people to work, but an economy of plenty was still being served up to be consumed, it seems to me if it can be brought about that everyone owns a share of some company or other, they'd still be provided the monetary units to exchange for the products they desire. Communism through the stock market.

   I'm very curious about other people's thoughts on this subject.


Unrelated Picture of the Day

Somewhere south of Santa Cruz, after I made a hundred-mile-wrong-turn the other day
view large

See Also
(1) Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life - Not so much a "webcomic" so much as a philosophical web- graphic-novel thats takes place in a world where there's only robots left. I found scrolling through it a bit counterintuitive but once you figure that out I think its really neat.

(2) When the Aliens Arrive - Kind of a similar question to the scenario posed in this entry. Basically, what would happen if space aliens made contact and instead of just wanting to probe a few of us they wanted to provide us with an economy of plenty? Economic disaster!

Comments

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

Thoroughly enjoyed the Nine Planets link...read through the entire series...I hope he does more, he seems to have kind of abandoned it.

[arinoch.livejournal.com]

I don't know that society will ever willingly turn over total controll of everything to machines. Not while they still make movies and series like Terminator etc.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

My friends have been engaging in a very interesting e-mail discussion ever since I asked them "What would the world be like if it were run by robots?" The consensus was that, in part, it depends on their programming. It was also interesting to see that the people I think of as being more optimistic thought robots would be a solution to problems, whereas those who are more cynical saw them as a new, devastating problem.

Nine Planets

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah me too! Really wish he'd continue because I really liked it too.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I don't think the decision will be in "society"'s hands -- I think the management of McDonalds will see that they can automate the entire process and save $$$ and bam it will happen. One by one the management of other enterprises will do the same...

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I really can't imagine any of the silly "they're going to kill us all" scenarios ever playing out. I do think, really, that they might threaten us with mass unemployment ... of a type that's only bad if you can't think outside the box about it -- when you step back and think, the same amount is being produced but people just don't have to work, all we need to do is find a new way of coordinating the distribution of wealth, it makes a lot more sense than obstinantly avoiding labour saving measures so that people will still have something to do.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

I don't see that happening, either. If we were capable of producing something that technologically advanced, it would likely be other things that would lead to the downfall.

Automation has been a continual issue with employment, but I think that offshoring has been a larger factor recently.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Turns out "people in other countries" are cheaper (and more expendible?) than robots! Lets hope they also lack the ability to take over?

Also I'm in the process of reading your idol entry at this very moment and loving it. (=

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

The day that those people in other countries discover organized labor, you'll see a lot of jobs return to the U.S.

Glad you're enjoying the Idol entry. I'm sure you recognize some of the ideas!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hmm. that might be the most ethical idea to get jobs back to the US I've heard yet -- somehow help labour organize in the other countries.

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read a book called "Kiln People" by David Brin? In it people have the ability to copy themselves to a clay blank for the day (as many times as they can afford) and inload the memories at the end of 24 hrs if they choose. There's some really interesting stuff in there about what people then choose to do for enterntainment, and what 'real' people do with their days when they can just whip up a clone to do all the boring chores. If you like sci-fi it's well worth the read, tightly plotted and really interesting.

[thenodrin.livejournal.com]

I'm going to go outside the box and suggest three more solutions.

1. The IT Solution.

As we automate more and more jobs there will be more and more possible points of failure where IT, maintenance, and other personnel will have to step in.

2. The Management Solution

I have noticed that there are more levels of management in companies today than there were 20, 50, or 100 years ago. My father had a secretary and reported to a manager who reported to the owner. Four levels of responsibility in a 1970s business run the same way it had been in the 1920s when it was established.

I had a temp working for me for a month or so, and I reported to a supervisor who reported to a manager who reported to a director, etc. a vp, etc. a senior vice president, etc. an executive vice president, etc. a CFO, etc. a CEO. That is 10 levels of responsibility in the business.

3. The Criminal Solution

This is more of an American solution than a global one. We Americans love to put people in jail. We love to punish people. From the guy who shared a bite of chicken at a buffet and ended up in jail for 3 days and the guy who was sentenced to 26 years for stealing 4 chocolate chip cookies to a guy in jail for life for eating someones brain.

According to Wikapedia, 7.2 million Americans spent time in jail in 2007. That is about 2.5% of the population. Not much in a percentile, but also not insignificant. Factor in the jobs necessary to care for and contain these people, and we have a nice industry.

Theno