This is something that has been niggling me, it's not really trading related except maybe it impacts how much longer financial markets may actually exist.
I apologise for the Marxist sounding terminology in advance.
The way I see it, the majority of people on this planet do not own property, or any of the means of production, they only have their labour to sell in order to purchase the things they need to survive.
If I look back at the past 20 years, how far technology has progressed, I can't help wondering how long it will be until the vast majority of jobs can be done by machines. Sure more high tech job will be created along the way, but will they be enough to absorb the mass of unemployed checkout clerks, train drivers, data entry processors, various manufacturing jobs etc. Can most of these people even be retrained to do highly skilled jobs?
So once we get to a stage where most jobs are mechanised I foresee a small class of comfortable property owners (assuming the government continues to protect property rights through this process) and everybody else with no market for their labour, and not even property on which to make a subsistence living. Sure maybe the welfare state will increase massively, but then isn't it logical with the majority of people eking out a living however they can and a small property owning class living in relative luxury some sort of revolution is inevitable and the collectivisation of the means of production the logical conclusion.
Or maybe it will be a case of evolution rather than revolution, with the state just slowly enlarging and taking up the slack, eventually crowding out any form of free enterprise. Maybe before this process even concludes the "Capitalists" will find they don't have a big enough market for the products they produce and give their factories up to "Democratisation".
Maybe the process is even more advanced than I realise and certain interests, e.g. labour unions, are putting up resistance.
The poorest races have the highest birth rates. The richest races are also some of the most prude.
Do you see the logic in not having offspring until you own at least some means of production (an education in the mechanization of the means of production, for starters)?
The poorest races have the highest birth rates. The richest races are also some of the most prude.
Do you see the logic in not having offspring until you own at least some means of production (an education in the mechanization of the means of production, for starters)?
Well I do, but I can't speak for the rest of the 6 billion people on this planet
This is something that has been niggling me, it's not really trading related except maybe it impacts how much longer financial markets may actually exist.
I apologise for the Marxist sounding terminology in advance.
The way I see it, the majority of people on this planet do not own property, or any of the means of production, they only have their labour to sell in order to purchase the things they need to survive.
If I look back at the past 20 years, how far technology has progressed, I can't help wondering how long it will be until the vast majority of jobs can be done by machines. Sure more high tech job will be created along the way, but will they be enough to absorb the mass of unemployed checkout clerks, train drivers, data entry processors, various manufacturing jobs etc. Can most of these people even be retrained to do highly skilled jobs?
So once we get to a stage where most jobs are mechanised I foresee a small class of comfortable property owners (assuming the government continues to protect property rights through this process) and everybody else with no market for their labour, and not even property on which to make a subsistence living. Sure maybe the welfare state will increase massively, but then isn't it logical with the majority of people eking out a living however they can and a small property owning class living in relative luxury some sort of revolution is inevitable and the collectivisation of the means of production the logical conclusion.
Or maybe it will be a case of evolution rather than revolution, with the state just slowly enlarging and taking up the slack, eventually crowding out any form of free enterprise. Maybe before this process even concludes the "Capitalists" will find they don't have a big enough market for the products they produce and give their factories up to "Democratisation".
Maybe the process is even more advanced than I realise and certain interests, e.g. labour unions, are putting up resistance.
What do you think?
Check out a book called "The Lights in the Tunnel" by Martin Ford, who has a pretty detailed take on this question.
My guess is that there will end up being some sort of minimum annual income provided to anyone who cannot find work due to machine displacement (at least in the developed world) in exchange for limited or no right to reproduce. Although I think that it is wrong to take from some to subsidize others, it happens. The primary problem is not so much supporting that first generation of individuals who get those subsidies, it's supporting the geometric growth of their offspring. Cut off that geometric growth and the system becomes more sustainable. Reversible birth control devices ought to do the trick, so that if someone then decides to pursue work again and forgo the guaranteed income, they can reproduce, if they choose. But, if they then go back to the guaranteed income option, the income is not raised solely because that person now has children.
