Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!uokmax!munnari.oz.au!metro!bunyip!moondance!uqcspe!qfagus!anvil!keithd From: keithd@anvil.oz (Keith Duddy) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Future Work (was Re: prognostications about expert systems) Message-ID: <1354@anvil.oz> Date: 9 Apr 90 04:57:29 GMT References: <53291@bbn.COM> <3923@plains.UUCP> <1347@anvil.oz> <3994@plains.UUCP> Organization: Anvil Designs Pty Ltd, Brisbane, Australia Lines: 96 stinnett@plains.UUCP (M.G. Stinnett) writes: >Besides, profits on stock sales are taxed. Ever hear of "capital gains?" Yip - We hava a capital gains tax in Australia - and the opposition wants to get rid of it. Ostensible Reason: people who don't manage their superanuation properly wil pay 3% on on it, (nothing to do with the big bussiness lobby.) >Finally, your comment about those evil corporations enslaving people at >$4 per hour to flip burgers: You know, no one has to work for McDonalds. >They are free to sell their labor to the highest bidder. But for many ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >teenagers and others, that $4 per hour job is the first step on the way >to bigger and better jobs. "free" is a very strange word in this context - there is no higher bidder for these people. I worked for a Burger King franchise here and I know that the only other work I could get was delivering pamphlets at $20/thousand (effectively $2 / hr). These companies exploit - explaining how it fits into the capitalist system doesn't make it right. >However, this will change with the new minimum wage law. The higher >wages push the price of human workers much higher than the cost of the >automatic inserter. He has to make a profit for his stockholders, and >he can no longer justify the higher cost of the students he employs. >The new machine is on the way; when it comes, most of those students >will have to find other jobs, if they can. (the hours were nearly >ideal for students; but too bad.) >If you force McDonalds to pay more, they will respond by either automating >as many of the jobs as they can, or they will raise the prices. If the >new prices are more than I'm willing to pay, then they will go out of >business and no one will have a job Fine - great - no-one wants to crappy jobs like cooking burgers. If we can automate them all it would be wonderful - but you avoid the issue here. My original point is that full employment should no longer be our prime social goal. We will progress towards a state of partial employment as we automate - rid yourself of the idea that working is everything that makes a person worthwhile... >Labor is just another raw material. You can dictate the price to a certain >extent, but if you go too far you will screw up the demand and everything People are NOT raw material - they each intrinsically valuable, their labour is not representative of their worth. (My first premise.) Hence they each deserve a quality life without regard to their productive status. (This follows from other premises too - e.g. handicapped people should be given quality of life, old people should not be bumped off when they cease to be productive, women who look after children should be given economic independence. Education should be free because knowledge is invaluable, and everyone the same rights to learn - once again - regardless of the economic importance of the knowledge i.e. History is as important as economics is as important as art.) You may argue that old people are not capable of doing productive work, and are therefore exceptions, and that people who can work should work. Here is our problem - there is enough wealth (and thanks to technology there is ever increasing efficiency in creating objects and services repesenting wealth) but there are not enough jobs, and there is not enough oppotunities for everyone to be comfortable. This means that the premises, and goals underlying the current system are deficient. The capitalist myth is that there is EQUAL opportunity for all - look at Iacoca - look at Buck Rogers, etc, they made it from nothing. I would argue that this is irrelevant. While there are millions sleeping in gutters, while the 3rd world starves, there is a problem, and saying "Look at Iacoca" isn't going to feed them. I challenge you to find the humanity in each person (not the units of labour), to wish for the health and comfort of each person, and to change the premises apon which you can justify the current state of affairs, and then to work with others who care to find an equitable way of bringing about a solution. >they win. If not, they loose. Jobs and Wozniak sold their van and HP >calculator, respectively, to raise the money to start Apple. They won >big. Many others did not. But that's the way it works in a free market. >Had they not risked, they could have lived comfortably working for Atari >or AT&T. But they had a good idea and good timing and became millionaires. >Should we penalize them for igniting the information age? Lets not penalise people - but let's not be under the misapprehension that we have a "free market", so many industries have cartels and dirty deals, or government regulations to stop this being the case that the concept can only really apply to small subsets of the economic picture - and even there it doesn't benefit all the people much of the time. Modern Capitalism != Free Enterprise, lets make this another premise, and talk pros and cons based on it. I can see benefits - the eastern bloc provides a stark contrast... but more on this later. _______________________________________________________________________ __ | /_/ __ o _/ /_ / ) __/ __/ | keithd@anvil.oz.au / \ (-' ( ( / / o /_ ' (_( (_/ (_/ (__/ o | (07)870 4999 Its so easy to laugh, its so / | Stallion Technologies easy to hate - it takes guts (_/ | PO Box 954, Toowong, to be gentle and kind. [Morrisey] | 4066, Australia. [Disclaimer: Stallion Technologies actually encourage creative thought - but they don't want to be involved with creative litigation.]