Replies

tpaine:
It is rapidly becoming cheaper to automate technology than to feed, clothe, & house slaves.
Can you formulate a rationale of your own on how we will deal with surplus workers in a high tech world?

Whatever technology becomes so cheap to put slaves out of work merely increases the portion of the workforce that's in unemployed poverty, further dragging down the ones who are still managing to eek out a living.
(Unless, of course, they starve to death first.)
292 -willy-

You're belaboring the obvious willy, in place of offering up your brilliant solution..

Could it be there is no solution? That Williams is right in writing:

"These are signs of a healthy economy, where businesses start up, fail, downsize and upsize, and workers are fired and workers are hired all in the process of adapting to changing technological, economic and global conditions. Societies become richer when this process is allowed to occur. Indeed, because our nation has a history of allowing this process to occur goes a long way toward explaining why we are richer than the rest of the world.

Those Americans calling for government restrictions that would deny companies and ultimately consumers to benefit from cheaper methods of production are asking us to accept lower wealth in order to protect special interests.

Of course, they don't cloak their agenda that way. It's always "national security," "level playing fields" and "protecting jobs". Don't fall for it -- we'll all become losers."

Can you formulate a rationale of your own on how we will deal with surplus workers in a high tech world?

Assume they'll magicly become creatively employed in some other productive occupation. (lacking skills and capital, it ain't gonna happen.)
Assume they'll peacefully starve to death and disappear on their own. (Ain't gonna happen, it goes against human nature.)
Use the military to slaughter 'em when they become thieves and revolutionaries. (Ya gotta do it when the threat is real and imminent, but it is immoral as a long-term plan. Scratch that idea.)
Placate the masses with welfare handouts to sustain their lives. (Nah, that's socialism/communism. That doesn't work.)
Shorten the work week so available work is spread around more evenly. (Hmmmm... sounds fine in theory for the most prosperous nations... but it's still oppressive of those in the more overpopulated, poverty stricken nations who will still pull down the average of the more developed ones. Can't stop people from working longer hours if that's what they want/need to do.)

Oh what to do? What to do?

I still prefer utilization of revenue tariffs to act as a trade buffer between different nations. So what if it's less "labor efficient" as defined by the transnational corporations? Those globo-bureaucracies aren't elected representatives of We the People anyway.

Serving as a buffer between nations, tariffs would encourage each nation to become self-sufficient at utilizing their own natural resources, including labor. So what if this results in "excess global capacity"??? Redundant, excess capacity is actually good, and keeps people productive within the expectations of their own national economies, permitting a more stable transition to whatever the future may hold.

Could it be there is no solution? That Williams is right in writing:

Could it be there is no solution? That Williams is right in writing:

No, Williams is dead wrong.
Whether it is business or government, the globo-trend is toward merger, acquisition and consolidation of behemoth and oppressive centralized bureaucracies. I preach a "solution" that emphasizes more decentralization and local responsibility/self-sufficiency/opportunity.
I believe in capitalism with a small "c": extremely fractured and competitive markets. Not this abomination that's being mislabled by global corporatists who utilize excessive economies of scale to manipulate government policies in their quest to win the globo-monopoly game. And I equally despise the proponents of centralized UN controlled marxism.

Centalized control is bad.
Decentralization is good.
Where can we find a Teddy Roosevelt to bust up the transnationals?
Oh, I know!
Go Pat Go!!!