Today we will reflect that the economy will shortly wither, no one will have to work, and we will all die of starvation sitting on street corners and trying to sell each other pencils.
Work is going the way of the dodo, the Constitution, and common sense. Won’t be any.
Doom moves in ripples. Suppose that the New York Times goes all digital. The factory that makes the newsprint will have fewer orders and thus need fewer workers. The same applies to the tree farms that make the pulp for the newsprint factory. Less transportation, train or truck, will be needed to bring the newsprint to New York. The pressmen who run the presses will go, and the company that would have made replacement presses will have fewer orders. The truckers who drive the printed papers to Newark will lose their jobs, as will the people who deliver the paper to your doorstep.
Just now, unemployment seems set to increase sharply. The oncoming wave of automation looks formidable. I read of an automated bricklayer in Australia, fast, accurate, and cheap. Amazon, the Great Bookstore in the Sky, can give you almost any book electronically in five minutes at half the hardback price: Fare thee well, bookstores and publishing industry.
Everybody and his grandmother has heard of self-driving vehicles, a technology that matures rapidly and will replace first (I think) long haul truckers and then urban delivery trucks and taxis. Computers don’t drive drunk, talk on cell phones, or suffer road rage and, potentially, inter-vehicle communications would let every car know what all the others around it were going to do. Humans need not apply.
There is worse, much worse. Computers already write simple news stories, do formerly very time-consuming legal research, and engage in financial analysis. They move into medical diagnosis. Note that a computer can store the symptoms of every disease known to man, which a human doctor cannot.
Unemployment or just barely employment already is high and apparently endemic. The rate is higher than it looks because the government counts only those looking for work, not the substantial population living on welfare. College graduates increasingly cannot find work, or have to work as baristas in Starbucks and live at home with their parents.
Which raises a very real problem: What do we do when most people have no work, though they are both willing and able?
To date, the only way we know to distribute goods and services (houses, food, that sort of thing) is to have people work and pay them for it. It is an imperfect system, having been devised by humans, and pays a quarterback millions for throwing a pointy object to a downfield felon while a shock-trauma nurse can barely eat. Still, it has been reasonably serviceable.
But this works only when there are jobs to be had. When there are not, when the bright, eager, and conscientious young cannot find jobs, then what?
We seem already to have maxed out our means of letting people appear to be working when they are not — bureaucracies, the military — or simply keeping them off the job market — child labor laws, required attendance at school, universities teaching nothing to those who want to learn nothing. Now what?
As long as the country does not fall into chaos, we are not going to allow large numbers of people to starve (despite the title of this column). A way today used to avoid this is simply to give the necessities of life to those who cannot work to earn them — for example, welfare illiterates for whom there is no economic need.
But we have no widely accepted way of providing the necessities to a new college graduate whose degree, whatever it may be, doesn’t get him a job. And since the only way we have of paying those who do not work is to tax those who do, we face the prospect of ever rising taxes on an ever shrinking base of employed. That isn’t going to fly.
It is utterly conceivable that within the life spans of today’s cradle occupants, only twenty percent, or ten, of those of working age will be employed. (Eighty years is a long time, technologically speaking, much longer than from the Wright brothers to a space station.) In this case, the wage-and-salary model is not going to work. What will?
Is there a choice other than paying everyone a living — “wage” isn’t just the right word — with higher amounts for those actually doing needed work?
So how do we get smoothly from where we are now to wherever it is that we are going? Sally Sue graduates from Swarthmore with a 4.0 in art history or chemistry, and just flat can’t find a job that pays her enough to live. Entry-level lab work has been automated, and Starbucks has moved to computer-driven spigots. She is eager to work, even desperate. No job. Do we just put her on genteel welfare? What then will her future be? Will those still working resent her? She, them?
If an automated economy employing a small fraction of the population were spewing out goods, perhaps the rest could be given EFT cards with some amount of “money” on them. Call it PAWS, Pathologically Advanced Welfare System. We do this now with welfare folk. Which is to say that the problem I am talking about already exists, though we haven’t quite noticed it.
A great question would then be: Can people handle leisure? The intelligent and educated, probably. They read books, write them, enjoy the internet. The distributed cognitive stratification embodied in the net would let them talk with each other around the world. For them, so good. But for others?
We have a sort of laboratory in the retired population, which lives without working and usually happily. The young and the not-so-bright are another matter. If the urban ghettoes are any guide, and they may not be, people and particularly the young do not do well with unlimited time on their hands. Life may be meaningless at IRS, but it requires people to show up in order to get paid. Endless leisure would not.
These are uncharted waters, think I. But, methinks, in coming decades we will begin to think about them perforce.
I have thought about this. I have no answer. There are too many people and too many are stupid. We need a vast die off. Just not me and mine. Say 50 million will be plenty.
Fred must be bipolar. Some days he’s the sharpest guy writing on these pages. And some days he’s just stupid.
I spent 20 years in the Navy and Fred’s characterization of the military as a place where people appear to be working but are not doesn’t ring true in my experience. It’s one thing to make an argument about the vale of the military’s work to society, but to imply that people are just getting paid for nothing is absurd.
Great food for thought. If the government borrows and redistributes cash to a mass of chronically unemployed, who then use it to purchase consumer and basic necessities from Corporate robot providers , who then is taxed to service the debt of the government?
I’ve given a lot of thought to this for 50 years and think there is no intelligent man made solution: it would be solved with war, disease or natural disaster. In war, nations fight over the last natural resources and then people fight over the last food: advantage tropical mountains In disease, rural has the advantage. In natural disaster: inland Geological Shield mountains have advantage. God knows all about it and gave multiple warnings: advantage Christians.
As a military man, I can assure you we are getting paid for just fucking off and wasting time a vast majority of our carreers. However, there are short periods when we do work that can cost us a whole lot more than a lifetime of earnings. In its depleted state, how many people do you suppose the earth can permanently carry? Having been to the georgia guidestones, my guess is right around 500 million, with jobs for all, but with plenty of liesure and automation. Seems we will require a good quality non nuclear conflagration.
For some folks, driving is a chore, for others, it give a sense of freedom, and escape. The state claims it is a privilege, therefore, driving will become more expensive, in an effort to reduce the need to maintain the infrastructure. Expect a future where fuel is much more expensive, and you are taxed on the miles you drive. This whole self driving car is a feature of west coast technocrats, it will only work where they can devote an entire lane to automatic cars, at least in our life time.
Same with robots taking our jobs, not in our life time. who will vote for our over lords?
no, folks, our entire life on this planet will be spent with leaders kicking the can down the road, moar debt to pay for previous debt, etc. and lower paying jobs for the masses. We might even go down that old Public Works Admin, to keep folks on the dole, and keep them off the streets, because once they start to riot, that is the end of our system.
those who want to work, will work, those who don’t, or can’t will live in small rental units, eating TV dinners, dying a slow death of toxic intake, and simultaneously feeding the SickCare industry.
Don’t have kids.
Steve Ludlum addressed this very well.. Most things today are “conduit” schemes:
If the machines are going to be doing all the work, then let them pay all the taxes that fill up my EBT card. I am one of those people who can totally handle leisure. On any given day, there are at least a half dozen things I’d rather be doing than going to work. Let a machine do the paper-pushing and send me a check. If some urban ghetto dwellers can’t figure out what to do with their time, well that’s their problem.
” have thought about this. I have no answer. ”
Glad to know I’m not the only one. If you had asked High School TPC he would have laid out the following:
1. Machines do all the real work.
2. Stiff population controls are put in place to prevent boredom from leading to out of control breeding.
3. Everyone paid a “comfortable” living wage, with the few super-needed people getting paid substantially more to make the robots function properly.
4. The internet provides boundless entertainment, and everybody is happy.
What a fucking fool, eh?
Lets rip it apart:
1. Machines are great, but their ability to produce would greatly exceed humanity’s ability to consume in such a system.
2. People are going to overproduce, good luck stopping it. Fucking feels good, even a retard can knock out a bunch of walking consumption factories that bring no value to the world.
3. Comfort is relative. To the guy who just spent 10 hours sorting cattle in miserable February rain/ice/snow, comfort is being dry and warm, with a full stomach. To Mama June and her Juneberries, its resource consumption equal to 10 normal families.
4. People don’t like to be happy. Facebook is fake as it comes. The “news” propagates like wildfire and has less truth than an Obama speech. Video games/TV/shows are ok in small doses, but a person has a yearning to do something else.
I don’t know what will happen. I do think LLPOH is correct though, there is going to be a massive die-off, and its going to be nasty.
No work?? Are you shitting me? I see pictures of unemployed men sitting on the steps of some run down building, and I just can’t understand how anyone can be so fucking blind. No Work?? They’re surrounded by work!!! Those people are sitting on steps that are falling apart and are saying there is no work. OH yeah that’s someone else responsibility. Well they live there, they are to ones that directly benefit or suffer from the condition of their immediate environment, but they can’t find work. One of the mental blocks that people have is that money has to be involved in everything. What I’m describing is work is done and the persons living condition improves. Isn’t that what doing work is all about?
But I’ll bet someone will say Oh but they won’t do that if they are not paid. – Well there you go- don’t do any work if you don’t get the money. Then I guess there is no work.
there will be plenty of work! picking berries, snaring rabbits, guarding and fighting other tribes, pottery making, animal husbandry, etc. we will have scribes, blacksmiths, shamans and dowsers once again eventually too.
@Llpoh, 50 million doesn’t even wipe out this years birth rate. One year of population gain won’t change things that dramatically.
Nobody works, everybody eats, some special snowflakes will continue to make 1000x more and make us feel special for letting us see a video of it.
Ripples on the lake. The Overlords, or at least their lower level agents, just haven’t yet figured out that all the things they rely on will go away with the population they have slated for extinction.
It wasn’t the Overlords that came up with our technology, though their money have greased the wheels, it was the MIDDLE class that created the big thinkers that brought modern life to us.
And we are the ones they are intentionally destroy. Again, I feel bad that it makes me joyful to think about their dazed expressions when reality smacks them hard.
The trouble with allowing the Elite to choose the survivors is that they don’t seem terribly concerned about preserving the best and the brightest. Vaccines, chemicals, engineered malnutrition, and so on, are awfully indiscriminate ways of bringing about population reduction.
AP- The elite owners can be happy with delta drones now they have robotics ready for roll out, there will still be a goodly number of alphas to be in charge so they won’t be bothered with the little stuff.
TE – I meant only 50 million need survive. That means what, 7 billion need to trundle off. Keep 50 million smart folks.
Sorry Stuck. But it is for the greater good.
Eliminate welfare, food assistance, and any hand out and you would be amazed at how fast people find work or create some form of useful enterprise to feed themselves. Sure some will go to crime, well a little instant frontier justice to make that a dead end road, and that will stop real quick.
I know many will hate my comment and disagree,But making it so that companies have to produce their product here and sell it here is the answer. People in poor countries don’t buy expensive American goods. There is no FREE trade. Or fair trade going on. Corporations are the ones making out on cheap labor. And yes i would be willing to shop at more expensive stores for American products that are made to last. Lately shoes and clothing and how well they are made has become very apparent to me. That old saying about getting what you pay for. NAFTA was good for China,Not the U.S. My opinion. Besides the idea that were fucked for sure with the current thinking.
Yahsure, don’t worry about fools. Preach it loud and proud. Globalist vs nationalist. Time to put clintonomics in the ash heap of history. As smart as fred is, at the end of the day, he’s a globalist douchebag. Ever hear him wax on and on about his beloved mehico? Maybe him and jeb (!) were separated at birth. Make america great again.
Only a partial solution, but:
– End the government support of asset bubbles and the FIRE economy. Rent costs fall drastically. Almost overnight, the cost of living drops to a quarter of what it was, and most people can survive by working only part time. Relative demand for jobs drop, more people can secure a living wage.
– Fall of commercial real estate prices lowers the costs of leasing for businesses. Instantly, many businesses which before were marginal are now feasible. Many more people can now be employed.
– Massive reduction in red tape and regulations on small businesses. Compliance costs plummet and many people set out to work as independent contractors.
I could go on, but making this bullet point list made me realize that the issue isn’t really automation. Automation and productivity increases are a natural product of advanced economies. The problem is government obsession with regulating the shit out of all economic activity. It makes it much easier to track and collect taxes, and to handicap competition to their campaign contributors. Get rid of the red tape and people will be able to survive on much less, and more easily fulfill the evolving demands of society.
Since the government programs and policies reduce resilience (keep down the competition, and favored campaign contributor X Corp. won’t necessarily prosper; one bad week of management decisions can kill a hundred-year old firm, whether or not they have inside stroke), the elite are creating their own downfall. Lack of a healthy, vibrant crowd of competitors leads to overconfidence, lackadaisical decision-making and tunnel vision, so when a single pillar falls, the rest of the economic structure is not strong enough to stand on its own. The supply chains are only as strong as the weakest links.
We will need to level down and rebuild the economy, starting with the financials since they are probably the most corrupt. ANYONE should be able to start a bank and run it the way they like, regulations be damned; people will quickly learn to keep their cash in TEN OR MORE banks, so that if one fails the blow is minimized. ANYONE should be able to start and run a business, and soon people will learn to buy from the capable. YES, there will be losses, and possibly fatalities at first; but what emerges will be stronger, faster and more flexible than a system made up of TBTF banks, mega-big-box retailers, behemoth electronics manufacturers and so forth.
Once we give up trying to make what we have work for purposes it was not designed for, we can start making a better set of systems that serve us instead of the other way around. There was no Internet when I left college the first time, I bought an Apple IIe in 1982 after I graduated and there was little to connect to (Anyone remember GENIE, the General Electric Network Information Exchange? GE was selling idle mainframe time by dial-up connection; I was able to buy an AIRLINE TICKET from home via SAABRE, and that was a BIG DEAL at the time!) Now I can do the same with all the airlines via Expedia and such, this Internet does lots of things well, all at the same time.
GOVERNMENT, not so much; no sane person or group designed this version, it is nearly immune to input from anyone not rich or connected, and fails at most of the tasks it was meant for, having taken on dozens it was never intended for. Once we redesign and rebuild government, much can improve.
Of course, it will require major failures and chaos first, but take heart, they’re on the way.
Bernie Sanders has the answer and is the logical choice for survival of the middle class, hands down. Your choice, your funeral vote for the .01% or the people.
Guy and james, nice posts
Gotta agree with those talking about the time/$$$ wasted by our military people doing nothing. I knew a guy who was senior NCO of a crash recovery squadron. He and the five guys under him spent four years playing poker, horseshoes, holding BBQ’s, tanning in the Sun, going to six week training classes back in the states twice a year and one TDY each year to their forward operating location where they slept, played poker, horseshoes, had BBQ’s and layed out in the Sun. I have know idea what the two officers did because no ever saw them.
The Red Horse squadron at RAF Wethersfield in the UK was the best kept secret in the Air Force. Most bases were busy little hives of activity starting about 6:00am but Wethersfield was a ghost town until about noon because everyone was sleeping off the drunk from the night before. When they did work they earned their money and then some but no one partied harder than those guys. Generals and other officers would fly in there just to party and whore around under the guise of “inspecting” something.
You’ve all heard tales of the military spending hundreds of dollars on hammers and toilet seats but they literally spent millions or more on paychecks and bennies for troops who essentially did nothing. I spent the first 32 years of my life on military bases and some guys considered doing as little as possible as point of pride. Some elevated the practice to an art form.
There were plenty of people who did a LOT of work but each base had dozens if not hundreds who specialized in doing as close to nothing as possible.
@Llpoh, ah, now that would make a helluva dent. As would the 500 million that the Georgia Guidestones mention.
Either or. Peak everything would definitely slow down. As would the raping of our resources.
@Llpoh and TE: the end limit to all this crap is natural resources. Build a magic robot that transmogrifies dirt or sea water into all the necessary elements and then spits them out on demand (too far fetched? Look at the programs already zipping across the internet to drive “Thingie Printers”).
In all of history, however, resources have been limited, which, in turn, limits the number of people standing around drinking, farting and being human. When the resources run out (usually starting with food) we solve the problem with a big die-off and Llpoh’s 7 billion is about right.
I have a deep ingrained feeling that this time will be exactly the same. The Four Horsemen will ride, only this time, all their stallions have atomic guts and much more sophisticated ways to destroy and kill; from the large sword to the tiny bacteria you’re just as dead.
I watch the ME and Europe with interest to see when the “tolerance switch” is flipped and , as they are in Hungary now, multi-thousands of men, women and children get hungry and the target countries of the travelers all slam the gates shut. There is a small start of a die-off growing day by day right there, right now.
Once again, the USA (what used to be, anyhow) is greatly protected by geography – oceans to East and West and even if the Southwest is a bit exposed, it can be slammed shut with a flip of a president (and maybe/will be, too!).
It will not end well and the downslope will won’t be pretty either. We are on the downslope now and stupid (like shit) always floats to the top in Government or the Military. It has been very well confirmed over the last half of my life that all things civilized are slipping away and when it gets lubricated by economic collapse (or multi-hundred-thousand individuals fleeing to WHERE?) it will speed up unbelievably.
I think I’ll go throw some fish on the bar-bee and have sufficient alcohol so that I may forget I wrote this anyhow…..
MA
IS…when I was in the military we called it “Shamimg “…do as little as possible. Remember the Army motto ” Hurry Up And Wait ” !