
After Jobs Dry Up, What Then? - cryptoz
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/world/europe/after-jobs-dry-up-what-then.html?_r=0
======
imgabe
> “The challenges we face are big, but our politics are small,” Mr. Cruddas
> said. “We have stopped asking ourselves the important question Bobby Kennedy
> asked. What makes life worthwhile?”

This is the real problem. I can't imagine any current politician giving a
speech like the one quoted in the article. Politics today is not about "How do
we make our country as good as possible?". Instead politicians only care about
"How do I get my party to win and make the other party look bad?"

~~~
rayiner
Rhetoric is tuned to the sensibilities of the time. We live in a much more
cynical time with much lower public faith in government: [http://www.people-
press.org/2014/11/13/public-trust-in-gover...](http://www.people-
press.org/2014/11/13/public-trust-in-government) (75% versus about 20-25%).
Which is ironic because we had more to be cynical about back then. After all,
JFK was a rapist, and his FBI director was trying to get MLK to kill himself.

It's entirely a function of economics. When JFK gave speeches, the U.S. was on
the top of a world in which all its competitors had bombed each other to
pieces. When Obama gives a speech, it's in a world where U.S. blue collar jobs
have fled to China and Mexico. Idealism just rings hollow under those
circumstances.

~~~
e40
_We live in a much more cynical time with much lower public faith in
government_

It also just so happens that one of the main parties in the US has been
working tirelessly for the last 40 years to make sure that faith in government
is lowered. I believe it's their overarching strategy to get people to
disconnect from politics, so they can rule the roost. What other reason for
their party's popularity, when the party policies are not in the best interest
of those voting for it?

~~~
tptacek
The point Rayiner was making wasn't partisan. None of us can possibly be well
served by recapitulating this endlessly tedious US political sharks/jets
argument on HN.

~~~
e40
I read your comment this way: what I wrote wasn't wrong, it's just not welcome
here on HN. The problem with this: smart and/or good people have for too long
taken themselves out of the fray and the result is a debased public discourse.

I was merely trying to point out the cause of one aspect of the original post.

------
panglott
'Jeremy Rifkin, author of “The Third Industrial Revolution,” said a basic
income would enable people to volunteer their time in areas like elder care,
child care, culture and the environment.'

This seems like the most important sentence in the article. Raising children,
caring for the elderly, editing Wikipedia, free software, &c. creates huge
amounts of unremunerated value. If people were freed from economic drudge
work, they would have free time not only for leisure, but that kind of
valuable work as well.

Japan for example has a time-based currency to coordinate elder care, but that
sort of thing will always be an issue of sharing volunteer labor.
[http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11657006](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11657006)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Cynical me. I don't see people who've never had to work, doing more than
watching the latest Reality TV program and complaining about the quality of
the free food. Doing those other things is all about cultural values, and
nothing about free time.

~~~
iamthepieman
Selection bias right there in "people who've never had to work"

What if you took people who have always had to work/chosen to work and give
them resources to free up their time. Of course, you'd probably get a lot of
bad things as well as good since sudden changes will always generate some
churn and chaos short-term.

Think about this for yourself. If you didn't have to work, or only had to work
25-30 hours a week what would you do with the extra time?

Now apply that to every middle class individual. Sure some would spend the
time in less productive or even harmful ways. But others would spend it even
more wisely than you imagine yourself spending it.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure. But steady state, nobody's working. Us old guard will die off and leave
just young'uns that never had to work. That was the idea I was getting at.

~~~
fown9
If you old people would stop working and retire, the young people would have
work to do. What's that? you didn't save anything after the best financial
boom time in history? You have to work until you're 80? Well, then stop
complaining.

~~~
bmelton
To be fair, a lot of market-based savings schemes were wiped out in 2008.

My in-laws, who diligently spent their entire lives working boring jobs in
banks (as accountants and such, not wall street), who prepared for their
retirement by paying off their modest $250,000 home (in Nashville, it's nicer
than the dollar amount makes it seem), found themselves screwed when they went
to retire, as their 401Ks were now worth fractions of what they'd expected.

So they're still working, extending their retirement in the hopes that their
portfolios will recover, or that they can continue earning enough while
they're healthy that they can offset it.

It literally never occurred to me until your comment that someone might resent
them for trying to earn a living for themselves without burdening the rest of
society.

~~~
ufmace
I gotta wonder, what were they invested in? I just checked my records, and my
investments went down about 35% in 2008, and have long since recovered. I'm
not a particularly good investor or anything. How do they manage to have their
investments drop to fractions, implying much greater than 50% loss, and still
have not recovered in 2015?

Not trying to judge or anything, just wondering what the deal is, because from
everything I've seen around me, that is far from typical.

~~~
MikeTV
In the case of my dad's 401k: The company's fund manager actively traded
shares on the way down, repeatedly moving the balance from declining symbols
to those that seemed more stable but were really just slightly behind the
curve. ...Then did the same thing when things started recovering, trying to
target the stocks that seemed to be going up the fastest. Quite literally
decimated their retirement.

------
lordnacho
I actually like the basic income idea, though I hadn't arrived at it from an
automation perspective.

If you're guaranteed money, you do away with the marginal effects of means-
tested benefits. Basically, if you're a low income earner it can happen that
you face a very high effective tax rate, in many countries. If you're
guaranteed money, you don't have this marginal tax problem; you can sit on
your ass or work for a bit of extra money. If you already make more, take it
as a tax allowance.

This in turn means you do away with the means testing system. No more forms to
fill out; no more mandatory courses that do nothing but line the pockets of
the course provider. No more looking over people's shoulders to see if they're
cheating. No more pressure on doctors to write iffy diagnoses.

There are of course issues with this system. For instance what do you do about
immigration?

~~~
dantheman
More importantly the math doesn't work out. Some people have way more costs
because they're disabled, sick, have a large number of kids.

~~~
netcan
These two perspective are almost irreconcilable.

Those supporting the current system think that it triages need and allocates
more to those with more needs. The basic income way of thinking doesn't
consider this, everyone gets the same. Everyone getting the same is essential

I lean towards the latter, I think the benefits system is an expensive and
ineffective way to triage needs. EG, rent allowance. If we could have a basic
income set at a level above the median benefits for non workers, almost
everyone would be better off, but not everyone.

Some people would be worse off, unless you take the highest possible benefits
and use that as the basic income, but that's unaffordable.

The thing is, I think that the state is very far from meeting people's needs
and assuming full responsibility for it. There are right now people who should
be eligible or are eligible for some benefit, but aren't getting it. The State
can help. It can minimize problems, but it can't solve them fully. I think
charities, families and such also need to play a role. I think the idea that
the state can make sure people's needs are met is just false. A lot of the
triage mechanisms are about pretending that it is, not ensuring that it is.

But there are those without other help, that have no other way of
supplementing income that have additional costs. These people will be worse
off. Other people will be better off. I think the bigger win should inform the
decision, but this is unlikely.

~~~
dragonwriter
> These two perspective are almost irreconcilable.

Not really. There are many aspects of the current welfare state system, and
there's no reason that some features couldn't be replaced with a UBI, while
some situationally-tested features could be retained. The relative costs and
effectiveness of various testing methods _aren 't_ all the same -- e.g., the
adverse incentives of means-testing aren't present with, say, targeting aid
based on medical diagnosis. One could replace _means-tested_ programs with UBI
but not other targeted programs. UBI _can_ be conceived as replacing all
targeted programs, but it doesn't have to be, and it especially doesn't have
to do so all at once.

> If we could have a basic income set at a level above the median benefits for
> non workers, almost everyone would be better off, but not everyone.

Whether that's true or not depends on how you _fund_ the UBI.

------
sktrdie
Wouldn't there always be new jobs? I mean, sure, technology has automated lots
of things. But that's a good thing. We just need new kinds of jobs - ones that
can't be automated. Who knows, perhaps in the future everybody can be an
artist. Not sure a universal basic income would work from a mathematical point
of view. Giving money to everybody would only increase the price of things.

~~~
NoMoreNicksLeft
> Wouldn't there always be new jobs?

There's no fundamental law of economics that demands there always be new jobs.

There have been in the past, each wave of disruption created new job
categories, even new industrial sectors. But that just means there will be new
jobs _until there aren 't new jobs_.

Science fiction authors have no trouble imagining scenarios where there are no
new jobs for anyone. If that comes to pass, what then? Presumably the same
economic forces that creates such a situation will also have allowed some
small percentage of property owners to own the automation that makes
everything. Depending on the details, this might not even be a Pyrrhic
victory... why would they need your money anymore, if they had fleets of
yacht-building automated shipyards and robots that kept the wine cellar
stocked? If they can manage the transition from "we still need you to buy our
products so I can live in luxury" to "the luxuries are produced in my
automated factories directly"...

Then quite bluntly, you're fucked.

> Who knows, perhaps in the future everybody can be an artist

There is the cliche of the starving artist. Even today. And we live in a world
which only supports less than 1% artists because that's the ceiling on that
occupation. That is mostly the amount of art that the rich want in their
lives.

Specialties rely on the idea that only a few do them. One specialty trades its
goods and services for those produced by another.

If we all make art, then I could trade my art for yours. But neither of us can
eat art.

~~~
cafebeen
I think you're assuming that art requires a market for buying and selling.
Most people mostly make art because it's fun and personally fulfilling, not so
much for rich folks to enjoy.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Isn't that circular? We all do that, because there's no money in it. If there
were, many folks would do it for a living.

~~~
cafebeen
Not sure what you're getting at. Just pointing out that most art isn't for
monetary profit, it's just people enjoying the process at home and with
friends.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Folks HAVE to do it for fun, or not at all, because there's no money in it.
Cause and effect were turned around.

~~~
cafebeen
Just pointing out that there are a variety of motivations--community, fun,
attention, money, etc.

------
nissimk
It's interesting that the nyt is covering basic income. I wonder if it would
be possible to institute basic income as a policy without significant social
unrest. It seems unlikely to me that basic income would be accepted
politically unless there was significant action first by disenfranchised
workers.

~~~
smountcastle
I'm curious why you don't think that a basic income would accepted
politically? If it were provided to everyone without regard to their other
sources of income it would differ from other approaches like welfare. I
realize that the money has to come from somewhere, so perhaps a transition to
a consumption tax rather than income tax would work. Of course the basic
income would need to be significant enough to offset the increased cost of
consumption for basic needs.

~~~
JonFish85
Once people saw the cost of the program, I think it would cause a great deal
of outrage. I've done the back-of-the-envelope math here on HN several times,
so I don't really care to do it again, but essentially it would dwarf our
current budget (which is already spending beyond income).

The cost is enormous. I believe if you taxed everyone whose net worth is over
$1b at a 100% rate, you could pay for this program for just under 2 years.

And if you're talking about "everyone gets the same amount", remember that you
have to collect it back, so you have the overhead of giving a person $1 just
to collect it back again.

~~~
minthd
The key for this to be possible is a big reduction in the cost of living.
Robots,automation and other tech , combined with the right regulations, could
possible reduce cost of living by 80%-90%. Under those assumptions, won't
basic income become possible ?

~~~
refurb
_reduce cost of living by 80%-90%_

Relatively speaking, our cost of living has already been reduced by 80-90%
since the late 1800's. The problem is, wealth is relative, not absolute.

~~~
minthd
True, but given no other job, decent living conditions(but not being rich)
plus lots of free time won't be such a bad deal for many.

------
Animats
Looking at the past won't help. Think of it this way. There's a list of
productive things humans can do that machines can't. That list keeps getting
shorter. Since computers got really cheap, it's become much shorter much
faster. That's new. Previous technologies knocked off one skill. Computers
knock off broad ranges of them.

A brief history of manufacturing technology:

Until the 20th century, the big economic problem was simply making enough
stuff, and it took about 80% of the workforce to make all the stuff. During
the 20th century, manufacturing technology got good, and by the 1950s, there
was plenty of stuff in the developed world, but the quality was iffy and it
still took about 40% of the workforce to make all the stuff. By the 1980s, the
quality was a lot better, and there was a glut of high-quality stuff. Today,
in the developed world, about 13% of the workforce makes all the stuff, and
there are no significant shortages of any buyable thing. (Is it out of stock
on Amazon? No.)

That's where we are.

We have no clue how to organize an economic system where a sizable fraction of
the population has negative economic value. Welfare, the dole, and such have
been tried - that leads to huge public housing projects warehousing useless
people. Then we get riots because there are too many bored people. So that
won't work.

That's the problem we face. Where do we go from here?

------
wallflower
Marshall Brain's "Manna" is an interesting take on humans becoming more robot-
like with the oversight of efficiency and automation software.

[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

~~~
StevePerkins
That's an interesting piece of writing, but just a quick SPOILER ALERT for
anyone clicking the link for the first time: It isn't a story. It's just a
device for painting a picture of one person's concept of a techno-utopia.

Libertarians often recommend Ayn Rand novels, because fiction is a useful
medium for showcasing their utopian (or dystopian) ideals. However, at least
Ayn Rand novels have intricate plots, and more or less fleshed-out characters.

"Manna" does not. The narrator, speaking to us from the near future, describes
the endgame of technology advances within the capitalist order we now know. At
the outset of the "story", the narrator is destitute in this order. He meets
people from an isolated utopia, who have built a different order. A speaker
from that group explains this alternative order to the narrator.

The end.

I still think that "Manna" is recommended reading, but I just want to give
people proper expectations going into it. I was actually a bit angry the first
time I finished it, because it was presented to me as something it wasn't. It
is an essay presenting one possible alternative order for human civilization.
While interesting in its own right, it isn't a real "story".

------
gklotz
Play this through to its logical conclusions. If 50% of the jobs are
eliminated through automation, who will buy things? You may still have a
software engineering job creating new automation technology, but who will it
be sold to?

If there is 60% unemployment, who will buy those machine picked strawberries,
iPads, or the products in Google ads? If this keeps going, big companies like
Apple and Google will be the biggest proponents of basic income. Their other
option is to go bankrupt.

------
kra34
The plan we discussed at SXSW was to establish some sort of hunger games style
competition where the unemployed battle for a rich life in the capital far
from their respective districts, but admittedly there is a lot of work to do
between now and then.

------
rdlecler1
I like basic income in principle, but I just don't see how it wouldn't (1)
discourage people from joining the workforce (2) the prices of goods and
services will still adapt to reflect supply and demand unless we can also
increase things like housing, access to education, and healthcare.

~~~
karmacondon
These issues have obviously been addressed by more knowledgeable people, but
here is my understanding:

(1) people work out of pride, not necessity. if your only concern was
sustenance you could live off of welfare or charity now. even with a basic
income, people will still be motivated to work because they want to have nice
things

(2) market forces will still apply. if you raise your prices because low
income customers now have more money, I'll lower mine. barring cases of
outright collusion, you'll see economic growth as opposed to rising prices

Basic Income is still a long way away, but it has been thought through. A
practical implementation may or may not succeed, but it won't be because of
fundamental flaws in the idea.

~~~
zanny
A few more points on top of these:

(1) The way jobs are valued would fundamentally change. Rather than higher
wage work being the work that fewer people _can_ do, you would also see a rise
in cost for jobs that people do not _want_ to do. Today you have your
unskilled employees trapped between a rock and a hard place when you offer
them a job as a burger flipper - work in wage servitude for us, or starve. The
employer has a tremendous amount of sway during negotiations in an economy
where employment is effectively mandated to survive.

Ask yourself - "why is McDonalds so cheap?" does it make any sense that having
people working in depressing service jobs makes _cheap_ food? Wouldn't the
optimization of food be automated delivery, minimizing the people involved?
McDonalds can only exist as it does today because all its employees are forced
to work for it.

(2) You would also see production shift. Economics goes where the money is -
we have too little low income housing and too many McMansions because single
family houses are profitable and reliable when sold and low income housing is
unreliable and less profitable. If everyone had a minimum of income, there
would be a tremendous amount of economic pressure to meet the demands of that
crowd that has maximal economic consistency in revenue. So in the short term
prices would be a mess, but in the long term the equilibrium state would be
that there would be a huge market to provide as much of what the UBI
unemployed class wants as possible within their budget for profit.

------
dataker
The only thing one can do is let the market takes care of itself.

In my country(Brazil), unemployment rate is fairly low( ~5% )and the
government loves to brag about it. Most of these jobs are 'artificial' in a
way the government blocks innovation in order to 'retain jobs' and justify its
economic intervention.

As a consequence, products and services are way more inefficient and
expensive. At the same time, employees have wages that, from a Western
standpoint, would be below poverty line.

For example, the government forbids customers to put gas on their vehicle. To
do so, one needs an attendant who works 10h/day with $3/hour wages.

~~~
eru
Which country is that?

~~~
dataker
Brazil

------
known
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)
FTW

------
anonbanker
well, he's been in the ground a few years now. chances are, he's pretty dry
already. I guess you can dig him up and donate his bones to science?

(didn't read the article)

------
vinceyuan
Because "Becoming Steve Jobs" was mentioned many time recently, when I saw
'Jobs' in the title, I thought "Is it another article about Steve Jobs and
that book"?

