Posted on 05/23/2015 7:29:36 PM PDT by RightGeek
Late last year, I took a road trip with my partner from our home in New Orleans, Louisiana to Orlando, Florida and as we drove by town after town, we got to talking about the potential effects self-driving vehicle technology would have not only on truckers themselves, but on all the local economies dependent on trucker salaries. Once one starts wondering about this kind of one-two punch to America’s gut, one sees the prospects aren’t pretty.
We are facing the decimation of entire small town economies, a disruption the likes of which we haven’t seen since the construction of the interstate highway system itself bypassed entire towns. If you think this may be a bit of hyperbole… let me back up a bit and start with this:
It should be clear at a glance just how dependent the American economy is on truck drivers. According to the American Trucker Association, there are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the US, and an additional 5.2 million people employed within the truck-driving industry who don’t drive the trucks. That’s 8.7 million trucking-related jobs.
We can’t stop there though, because the incomes received by these 8.2 million people create the jobs of others. Those 3.5 million truck drivers driving all over the country stop regularly to eat, drink, rest, and sleep. Entire businesses have been built around serving their wants and needs. Think restaurants and motels as just two examples. So now we’re talking about millions more whose employment depends on the employment of truck drivers. But we still can’t even stop there. [snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
A “self-driving” car is a government-driven car. Someday, you will say something about Obama that he doesn’t like. You will be riding down the road, and the doors on your car will lock, and you will be driven to prison.
No matter how much productivity rises, people will never have a ten-hour work week. Taxes will always be raised sufficiently that people will find it necessary to work 40+ hours a week.
but will they load/unload themselves/
Sorry, but you are completely missing my point.
I quite agree that the economy of the future will be much more productive, that prices for most things will come way down, and that real standards of living will rise for everyone.
My concern is not for the material welfare of the middle and low IQ components of our society, it’s for their mental and emotional health. They will become utterly redundant to the functioning of our society. They will have no purpose, serve no role other than that of consumer.
In theory, if the upper segment of IQ was put out of work in this way, they might turn to art, literature and philosophy to provide meaning to their lives.
Sadly, this isn’t really an option for middle and especially lower IQ types. They aren’t capable of it.
I recommend a movie called the Great Seduction, a Quebecois film about a remote fishing village where the greenies made them stop fishing. They get welfare/unemployment checks instead. Materially they’re as well off or better as ever.
Psycholigically doing nothing but sit around and wait for the next check is killing them.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2319580/
Seems to me this is Conservatism 101. People need to work to earn what they consume. But what do you do when the market has no demand for any services they are capable of providing?
I agree. You bring up some points I hadn’t really considered.
The problem is that make-work won’t work. People have a nose for that. They’ll know they’re being lied to.
I suppose there is some libertarian approach to sharing the wealth that doesn’t involved massive government intrusion, but darn if I know what it would be.
Wait until someone hacks the truck and makes it stop somewhere to be unloaded by criminals - or pays to have it hacked to crash so that people say no, I want a human driver.
In which case, they don't stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, or have dock loaders filling their cargo.
And in which case also, they aren't going to be replaced by robot drivers, because they do a lot more than drive.
If you believe what this article says and the ideas of some very smart people like Tyler Cowan some sort of guaranteed basic income might be the price society pays to keep peace with this robotic/automation revolution. There is nothing in economic theory that says those who lose their jobs will find a new job in another field requiring a similar skill set and compensation. One can argue workers during the first fifty years of the industrial revolution from 1800 - 1850 were worse off with the introduction of factories. With the pace of change so rapid a large percentage of employable people, some like Cowan 80%, will be of zero value in the labor market. If you want all this progress then perhaps the societal compact is the 80% displaced will need to be supported by the state with taxes on the 20% who will be extremely wealthy.
While we agree on the blessings of work even for work's sake, what's mixed up is welfare. Strictly limit that and work becomes natural. Even for the 'lower IQ types'. There are plenty of jobs that robots will not be cost effective for in our lifetimes and the lifetime of a child born today.
Perhaps. But I think it is perfectly obvious there will be more supply for these jobs than demand, which means wages will go down.
IOW, somebody who in 2000 would have been able to command a salary providing for a middle-class lifestyle will quickly fall to minimum wage.
All this is of course vastly exaggerated and accelerated by our insane importation of more and more people who have few job skills.
So the problem is government and the elites. My belief is that productivity gains will change what “a middle-class lifestyle” will cost.
Right now American poor are the 1%ers of the world’s poor and even among the emerging countries’ middle class. Our poor live as well as or better than the middle class in France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. They’re much better off than the working middle class anywhere outside of the OECD countries.
That’s due to the incredible economic engine of America. Despite all the problems, we’ll still have plenty if ingenuity and productivity are allowed to flourish.
What is defined as a “middle-class lifestyle” has gone up faster than prices have come down.
In the 50s people generally considered middle-class would likely have a home no larger than 1200 square feet, only one family car (of atrocious quality and reliability by today’s standards), a tiny and poor quality TV, etc., etc. They would have had a much smaller wardrobe of clothing, though what they had was likely of higher quality than most today.
The list goes on. What is “entry level” today will be unacceptable tomorrow, and things that are deluxe today will soon become the norm.
Watched an old episode of the Honeymooners the other night. The Nortons and Cramdens would be considered, I guess, lower middle class. They didn’t even have a phone. They got calls at the drugstore downstairs. Now just about everybody has a mobile phone. In the 50s a phone in your car was the absolute height of decadent luxury.
Try driving down an old, bypassed section of highway from the 50s, if there are any around. Look at the old motels never remodeled because they’re now off the main drag. Barely room for a double bed and a dresser. But that was standard back then. Today’s motel rooms, even in the low-medium range, are 2x to 3x the size, often more.
When I was growing up, hospitals had wards. Then semi-private rooms were available as a luxury item. Today most hospitals are being built with single rooms only, and generally quite a bit larger rooms.
The list goes on and on. Our expectations grow faster than our ability to provide them.
Good article. It could mean that people would empty the interior and crowd the coasts, similar to Brazil.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.