The end of private ownership in the means of production

Quote from rockefehler:

So far, manufacturing jobs made obsolete by automation have been replaced by service jobs ... if we get to a point that low-level service jobs get replaced by technology, and there are no replacement jobs created, we have to put some restraint to this technological development (e.g., laws prohibiting replacing certain jobs by technology).

We are already at a point where the majority of the population lives in great wealth compared to our ancestors (e.g. in the Netherlands, about 90% of the population lives a relatively wealthy life). So the focus should shift to increasing well-being, a fulfilled life, not more wealth. Having a job is important for well-being I think; if goods could be produced by pressing a button, and noone would have to work anymore, that could lead to great societal disruption. We're close to that situation, with the development of nanotechnology.
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If all work can be automated and goods can be produced at the click of a button, which I suspect will happen, and I don't have to work anymore then I am all for it. But who would be pushing the button, for me that is the important question.

BTW Henry Hazlitt covers all this in his book Economics in One Lesson and says that every time there is panic about a new technology taking jobs the economy adjusts and he cites many examples. But I don't think he could foresee the rate at which technology is now progressing.
 
Quote from Humpy:

Everyone assumes that the USA is a democracy !

It is NOT. It is more a plutocracy where mostly everything is reduced to money.

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What's wrong with reducing everything to money?

Money is just an abstraction which reflects a person's value to society.

Would you rather everything be reduced to something else? What else is there that provides an objective standard everyone can agree on? I'm glad everything gets reduced to "money" rather than reduced to physical might or hereditary privilege, which are probably the only other objective options available. Everything else has been proven to be pie in the sky.

The invention of money ranks up there with the invention of the wheel in terms of enabling the human species to advance from a small group of homo sapiens in Africa to the dominant species worldwide. If you try to replace it, what are you going to replace it with?

Complaining about the role of "money" is one of those things that makes no sense to me.
 
Quote from ZapCoffee:

What everyone is missing here is that prices are set by supply-demand.

If you have 1,000,000 cans of caviar and I have a pencil, and nothing else exists, -- I'll trade you a pencil for 500,000 cans of caviar. And you'll do it -- why? Supply-demand.

Prices change. What goods/ services are priced at now will change too and some prices will change to an absurd degree like the caviar-pencil exchange.

In a society where there are 5 owners of automated production and 1,000 layed off workers, supply-demand will simply price the factory's goods for stuff the layed off workers can produce. Even if it's only stupid stuff like the lint in their jeans, the owners of production will buy it for what would be absurd prices today.. like 5 lbs of steak for jean lint. Such prices seem insane but the assumption of such automation is just as different from current reality.
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In a "free market", supply and demand works and equal voting abounds. That very quickly degrades in to power blocks and incorrect price signals. Those get worse and worse until society hits a breaking point. Distortion in price signals causes ever more inefficiency and then social unrest.

The jubiliee concept of the bible was an interesting one. I think it attempted to prevent long term disruption of price signals.
 
Quote from logic_man:

Where you gonna get the jeans if you have no labor to exchange for currency to buy them?

You're assuming that parties have to trade simply because both parties have different goods available for trade. That's not true because the party with the more "valuable" good can always wait for another trade offer to come along and refuse to trade for the first offer that comes along.
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I agree. Currency is a derivative of something else and therein lies the rub. What is currency a derivative of?
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

Name one successful society from history that did not have government control over at least part of the economy. There has never been a prosperous society that did not at least have a state military, and there has never been any remotely just society that did not have state-provided law & order, and at least a moderate amount of state medical and education and retirement provision for those too broke to afford the necessities.

A society with no state at all will quickly be taken over by the first psychopath or foreign power to amass a moderate army and bully the majority into submission. So the question is not whether there should be any socialism, but merely how much. Should it be limited to the bare bones - national defense, courts, law enforcement; should there be a modest safety net for education, healthcare, retirement; or should it be a French-style life-long provision for all society, at the expense of high taxes and stifling entrepreneurship.
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My understanding of hunter-gatherer societies (where we seem to be headed back to - guns and caves LOL) had no state military (they used conscription for a common foe) and government did not control their economy. Will that do?

Daniel Quinn's books have one answer for you. Never is a long long time. Control of food through economics causes much of what we see.

Your comments are interesting. Thanks.
 
Quote from logic_man:

What's wrong with reducing everything to money?

Money is just an abstraction which reflects a person's value to society.

Would you rather everything be reduced to something else? What else is there that provides an objective standard everyone can agree on? I'm glad everything gets reduced to "money" rather than reduced to physical might or hereditary privilege, which are probably the only other objective options available. Everything else has been proven to be pie in the sky.

The invention of money ranks up there with the invention of the wheel in terms of enabling the human species to advance from a small group of homo sapiens in Africa to the dominant species worldwide. If you try to replace it, what are you going to replace it with?

Complaining about the role of "money" is one of those things that makes no sense to me.
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I wasn't complaining, I was just pointing out a truth that many would rather hide.
It is indeed odd that the champion of democracy around the world is not a democracy itself.
 
The great tragedy is that democracy sounds good in theory but falls far short in practice. Just about every sort of modern democracy is bust !
And why ? Because you can't expect people to vote for the general good of the nation. Oh no they selfishly vote for what suits themselves e.g. more handouts, more medicare, more.......You get the picture.
 
I think I am right in saying Karl Marx said something like all ownership of property is theft !

Rubbish - too far one way

The Western countries have perhaps gone too far the other way where 90% of property is owned by 5% of the population, which causes a lot of resentment - riots.
 
Quote from Humpy:

I wasn't complaining, I was just pointing out a truth that many would rather hide.
It is indeed odd that the champion of democracy around the world is not a democracy itself.
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As far as I know, the US champions "democratic republicanism", although, in the final analysis, we don't dictate what any country's constitution will be, that is their decision.

So, no, we are not a democracy, nor is democracy a viable long-term political system. US states are often called "laboratories of democracy" and they do have more democracy-related features such as referenda, that do not exist at the national level.
 
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