Quote (Thor123422 @ Sep 9 2020 10:23am)
This was compared to other places that didn't raise the minimum wage, so the "coming out of a recession" is controlled for.
There is no moral calculation. If the worker provides more value than they cost, they will be hired and worked. Once they reach a point where adding more workers does not increase the value produced, they won't hire more. The line where they stop hiring workers is dependent on the demand, not the cost of the individual worker, unless the cost of the individual worker outpaces the value that worker produces, which even for places where cost of labor is one of the largest factors virtually never happens.
Yeah, in the last 10 years automation has grown. The idea that automation will outpace job creation and result in mass unemployment is still a theoretical one.We aren't seeing it yet, and it has never happened in all of our history, but it might happen if current trends stay the same.
this is due to a list of factors that are no longer relevant, i can list some that after you read if you still find the future theoretical i can do no more.
1. worker displacement vs worker replacement.
historically when a job process is automated displaced workers could transition into a new job using a large part of the skills they had on the replaced job. paired with the fact that new jobs were always available for that set of skills. one factory lays off its workers due to automation or outsourcing and the workers displace to several other firms ready and able to take on new workers that need little training compared to new hires. with unskilled labor drying up in modern times and positions like semi truck driver all but doomed there will be no sponge to soak up these displaced workers. they'll create economically stagnant zones in america that cause more and more Trumps to rise to power, much as he motivated displaced coal workers, lead miners, factory workers, etc to vote in towns and regions that once flourished but are now dead.
2. unidirectional vs dual pronged focus of automation
typically workers were able to displace as described above because an industry would automate, but tangential industries would not. baseball seamers eliminated all seamstress labor for baseballs, but large industries still needed seamstresses. and in general a bottom up approach to automation was used, therein the least skilled positions which were the easiest to automate got the axe first. and while more skill was required to find a job in a tangential industry your relevant skills still got you a large part of the way to knowing that position. with all industries in the modern time automating at the same time and skilled laborers becoming a target just as much as unskilled this is now no longer a bottom up meta. its a bottom up, top down, and sideways in approach squeezing all sectors simultaneously. accountants, shop workers, skilled welders, assembly workers, bakers, miners, etc. no one is safe any longer.
3. barriers to full automation
historically cost and technological advancement were the barriers to automation, this is no longer the cost. automated processes pay themselves off in no time, and the technology to do almost all low skill and medium skilled jobs at a rate and quality surpassing a human exists now. the new barrier is PR and unions. this causes corporations to slowly bleed the workers, lower workers to 35 hrs, remove benifits, etc. to offset the cost of now automating now. as this constinues you eventually hit a breaking point, laying off 200 workers is insanely bad PR, 50 less so, once it's 20 it will become 3 over night. as these sectors fall workers will find displacement not an option. if it is an option they'll get part time at best.
in general corporations through technology can eliminate their own demand, they can all simultaneously using a combination of savings and tax credits fully automate almost everything now. but in doing so they'll eliminate their own consumers. so instead they will await a UBI to be 100% needed to essentially farm new consumers, then full replacement begins. in the mean time corporate greed eeks us closer to this 100% need for UBI.
4. pace of automation
as automation is an exponential growth in the early stages workers were able to react to the growth, and in many cases retire with less savings than they'd hoped to get but survive. as the growth curve turns due north, as it is doing now, workers will not be able to react. savings will be rapidly depleted, houses sold/foreclosed on, and economic deadzones will be created with dirt cheap apartment complexes replacing the suburban neighborhood. all the while corporations and banks will by the property and swell their incomes even further.
in short we needed UBI 10 years ago to stand a chance to ride the waves, we need it now to stand a chance to come out the other side decently, and in 10 years it will be too late to prevent a recession that bucks the 20 year economic cycle. America will lose its place in the world, american corporations will turn to foreign markets to sell their goods to countries that already give citizens money to remain consumers, and politicians like Trump will rise to offer false promises of fixing the deadzones that without a change to the electoral college will cause a 50 or so year period of economic hard times where the only cure (automation tax, export taxes, and UBI) will be public enemy #1 from conservative politicians drawing on outdated economic theories to maintain a stranglehold on the new class of voters the decide every election, the unskilled, the unemployed, the unsave-able.
whether my industry destroys america or empowers it to a new height ill be a rich man. its all of you that are taking the chance on a coin flip, head, tails, doesnt matter to me. but pumping min wage, increasing worker rights, mandating larger percent of health care paid by employers, paid family leave, etc. all of these will result in an antithetical result, not worker empowerment, but worker extinction.
This post was edited by thesnipa on Sep 9 2020 11:26am