

The welfare state is today's equivalent of the gold standard - hga
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/12/depression_2010_105530.html

======
TomOfTTB
My problem with the assertion in this article is I see technology creating an
even greater need for the welfare state in the future. So I see attempts to
diminish it as being ultimately pointless.

Up to this point technology has created as many jobs as it's replaced because
it's enabled us to do more than we could before (much of the analysis
computers now do in the financial market for example wasn't possible 20 years
ago).

But that trend will eventually catch up to us. Especially once robotics
matures and starts replacing so-called "unskilled labor" jobs. Think about it.
A single robot can replace at least 3 shifts of laborer (and probably 4 since
it can work faster with no breaks). Even with the increased need for
maintenance personnel there's simply no way we'll create as many jobs as we
lose. Once that happens we're going to have an excess of people and they'll
need to be given some means to live.

Which is why I disagree with this article. For better or worse the welfare
state is here to stay. What we need to do is find a way to make it more
efficient so it doesn't bankrupt us.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Seems to me like you are assuming a zero-sum game: technology eliminates
massive jobs so people have no work.

History is full of technology eliminating massive numbers of jobs. At any one
of these moments a person could say the future would hold incredible numbers
of unemployed. But it didn't happen.

I don't know if it will happen or not, but if I understand your argument I
believe there is nothing unique about our current time in history that makes
it any more valid that it was, say, in 1890.

~~~
TomOfTTB
Actually my point is that we are in a unique time.

Up until now technology replaced skilled labor positions. So people who would
have gone into something like economics instead went into computer science and
we just did more with what we had.

Now we're getting to the point where technology can replace unskilled labor
and that creates a unique problem because, though it might not be politically
correct to say, some people simply don't have the capacity to go into a high
tech vocation.

Put it this way. There have always been people whose job was one of pure
labor. Lifting boxes, tightening screws and so on. Once robotics gets to the
point where it's cheap enough and skilled enough to do those jobs where do the
people who have done those jobs in generations past go?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Nope. I understand you, and my point still holds.

At each step in modernization people wondered what was going to happen. What
you are saying has been said dozens of times before. Maybe thousands.

The average unskilled laborer in the U.S. works at a much higher level of
abstraction than he did a couple of generations ago. Nothing is simple any
more, and computers are everywhere. The day laborer that does the gardening
down the street has a pickup, a cell phone, a notebook computer and a
bookkeeping system, a GPS, etc. If he is competitive he might do analysis of
the soil, use special tools, pick up knowledge at the local college, etc.

And it's going to a long, long way from robots among us to really cheap multi-
purpose robots everywhere. Market dynamics will have a lot of say in the
meantime.

You may be right. it's just guessing on both of our parts. The future will
tell. But I seriously doubt it. Claims of uniqueness need better proof than
hand-waving about talking about robots.

EDIT: You also may be right -- but in a thousand-year timeframe. And as Keynes
famously said, in the long run, we are all dead.

~~~
TomOfTTB
With all due respect you're guessing, I'm not. You're basically saying "it's
worked itself out in the past so it will surely do so in the future." But
that's not a logical conclusion. Things do change.

What I'm saying is the fact that we won't have enough jobs for everyone is
inevitable just by extrapolating on current trends.

The welfare state being discussed exists because people have been able to
retire much earlier without negatively impacting society. That in itself shows
a trend towards the amount of human labor our society needs growing smaller.

My original point is that we need to start innovating in how we govern to deal
with the eventuality of that trend reaching the point where there aren't
enough jobs for younger people. We shouldn't destroy the infrastructure we
already have and then try to solve that problem when it becomes a real crisis.

~~~
randallsquared
_You're basically saying "it's worked itself out in the past so it will surely
do so in the future." But that's not a logical conclusion._

It certainly can be. Daniel is basically arguing for the outside view, and the
outside view is often the best predictor of outcomes. Now, it may be that this
time is different, but when you have a long history of specific failed
predictions based on the details of a transition, it's certainly worth paying
attention to the trend as a guide to this instance.

