tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post1290685092587924102..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Work and the Second Machine AgePhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-66337920257216600542016-09-30T07:13:02.315+01:002016-09-30T07:13:02.315+01:00Seems to me its all about ideology. In the 1970s a...Seems to me its all about ideology. In the 1970s and 80s i.e. before the straitjacket of TINA geographers looked forward to a future determined by leisure and freedom. Then, robots and machines were utopian, today they are dystopian. It's all about the narrowing of expectations and the closing of utopian futures. The future is ours to shape. Paul Ewarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00057355765883155749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-12468780086553774692016-09-28T21:50:06.973+01:002016-09-28T21:50:06.973+01:00@david, I personally don't believe we are ente...@david, I personally don't believe we are entering an era of structural unemployment or secular stagnation, because there are in fact enormous tasks and problems for us to tackle: clean energy, climate change, healthcare, caring for an ageing population, developing the 3rd world, improving infrastructure etc... The list of productive things we can do is almost endless. <br /><br />The problem is that we rely on the private sector to tackle our problems, where in many (most) cases it is I'll-suited to the tasks. Could the private sector have put a man on the moon in a decade when Kennedy made the famous speech? No, because it would have lost a lot of money in doing so. Can the private sector solve the problems of climate change and clean energy? Probably not, and for the same reason. <br /><br />Also, I can't imagine that funding the BIG via taxation will ever be politically feasible, because you will be taxing workers to fund people who are not working, political poison IMO. An MMT-style job guarantee funded via functional finance does not carry the same stigma of "punishing workers to reward shirkers", even if the economics will be hard to sell to a public that thinks in household analogies. At least full employment is a positive thing to offer.richard yothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305360536644338195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-14623284601014064852016-09-28T15:52:13.199+01:002016-09-28T15:52:13.199+01:00@richard,
The job guarantee (the full employment ...@richard,<br /><br />The job guarantee (the full employment approach) only makes sense if employment is cyclical - i.e. we move from periods of natural full employment into temporary depressions when a lack of business confidence leads to hands being idle. This made sense in Keynes's time but it makes no sense if we are now in an era of structural unemployment caused by technology<br /><br />While the JG can result in the use of "idle labour for productive purposes", it is inherently inefficient. This is because the JG must be paid at a sufficiently low wage to encourage migration to private-sector jobs once the economy improves - i.e. below the minimum wage. This is a poor incentive that discourages commitment. A basic income is a better driver of pro-social work as the motivated are self-selecting (i.e. volunteers rather than conscripts).<br /><br />A basic income isn't inflationary because it does not increase the money supply. It simply changes the distribution of income. In simple terms, everyone gets the UBI (whether in work or not) and this is offset by an increase in taxes on higher incomes and capital (so a net redistribution from rich to poor).<br /><br />The job guarantee is a solution to the problem of a surplus of labour. Basic income is a solution to a problem of a surplus of capital. You first need to determine what the problem is.David Timoneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03568348438980023320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-9538524396593709342016-09-28T10:14:26.452+01:002016-09-28T10:14:26.452+01:00Full employment is a better approach than a basic ...Full employment is a better approach than a basic income guarantee. There's many reasons for this, but fundamentally the main problem with basic income is that it is inflationary because people are being paid an income without necessarily adding to output and production, which means that there is more money chasing fewer goods, hence inflation. <br /><br />A Keynesian style full employment policy is a much better approach because the state can use idle labour for productive purposes, of which there are legion: climate change, public services, infrastructure etc... This has tangible benefits to society, and adds significantly to output and productivity while also generating demand in the economy without the inflationary bias of a BIG. <br /><br />Finally, a full employment policy pays for itself, as Keynes said: "look after unemployment and the budget looks after itself". richard yothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305360536644338195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-12220476395223316012016-09-27T17:31:08.397+01:002016-09-27T17:31:08.397+01:00I agree with the criticism of Yvette Cooper as bei...I agree with the criticism of Yvette Cooper as being someone stuck in the old mentality and not quite grasping how policies are shaped in a post wage slave world, which is what we are talking about. To give up on wage slave work is not to give up on work! Yvette Cooper cannot imagine anything beyond the status quo, not surprising given her Tory lite political career, where Thatcherism is accepted pretty much without qualification (no really). Of course under capitalism those who do not have wage slave work will have autonomy (or unemployment as we used to call it) but if we imagine beyond the narrow limits of Yvette Coopers dreary world we could imagine productive work being shared out. Imagine a society where we had basic hours of say 15 hours of ‘specialised’ work per week, with 5 additional hours for ‘community’ work and then another 3 for ‘voluntary’ work. <br /><br />The New Economic foundation have indicated this society is now possible, all that is holding us back is our worst and most disgusting enemy, I speak of those smiling reasonable monsters of the centre left. The monsters who tell people that anything which stands outside the status quo is idealistic, fantasy and madness.<br /><br />We cannot imagine the future while those planet destroying, nation destroying, limb chopping fanatics of the status quo stand in our way!<br />BCFGnoreply@blogger.com