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To: Will88

It is, I think, even more fundamental a shift than you say.

Every economy and society that has ever existed has functioned by controlling, in one way or another, the distribution of resources. The power of this control is based on those resources being scarce, giving power to those who control access to them.

In the world of the future, scarcity is likely to disappear or at least become much less critical, for many resources. It has already happened for information and information management, which has essentially become free. Same will likely happen for material things to an increasing extent.

So in the world of the future there is likely to be a great deal of stuff, produced with very little embedded human effort. So how is access to that stuff determined? The market and the job are by definition functions of scarcity. Who controls access when scarcity doesn’t exist? Do those who presently control wealth and power remain in control of it, and their descendants forever, simply because they happened to be in control when this shift happened?

Is there some mechanism for running such a society other than a redistributionist and therefore essentially tyrannical government? I must admit I am pessimistic that there isn’t.


67 posted on 11/01/2014 12:37:39 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan
So in the world of the future there is likely to be a great deal of stuff, produced with very little embedded human effort. So how is access to that stuff determined?

I agree completely. You've expressed it very well. Most in this and a previous thread on the subject don't seem to see that with robotics and increasing automation, there will be increased efficiency and equal or greater output of goods and services with far fewer human inputs. So what are the humans to do?

And, with our trillion dollar annual expenditure on means tested poverty programs, we already have 15 - 20% of working age heads-of-household receiving most or all their income from government. Then if automation displaces a third or so of the present workforce, we'll have about half our working age adults who need a source of income, with no job.

Yep: who will own the factors of production? How will available jobs be awarded? How will all the folks with no job live? Will they be allowed to have kids? How many? Yikes. Things could get complicated.

68 posted on 11/01/2014 12:58:06 PM PDT by Will88
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