
Robots and industrialization in developing countries [pdf] - doener
http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/presspb2016d6_en.pdf
======
JoeAltmaier
I had a dream where I had the last programming job in the world - writing
cobol printer drivers. Then somebody came in and put a box on my desk. "What's
that?" "Its a device that can write cobol printer drivers".

I stood up, and went to the door, and opened it, and there was only a grey
blankness. Then I woke up.

~~~
aswanson
Why would computers need to communicate through printouts, tho?

~~~
robotresearcher
Pink slips gotta be printed.

------
disordinary
It's interesting and a little scary, we're going to have to drastically
rethink the way our economies operate and what our lifestyles will be like in
the future, and fast.

The problem is we've seen that people struggle to let go of old ideals, for
instance climate change deniers, because they're reluctant to let go of their
lifestyle despite all evidence that it's not sustainable. Unfortunately, the
more you fight it the harder the fall will be.

This also makes Trumps promise to bring manufacturing back to the US quite
interesting, because the labor cost is too expensive in places like China and
they are loosing the manufacturing jobs themselves, just to automation.

The only way to reverse the tide would be for large subsidies on US based
manufacturing, and tariffs on imports, i.e. a protected economy, which has
never worked in the past.

In fact manufacturing IS returning to the US, Foxconn has been building US
factories as have other large contract manufacturers, it makes sense from a
supply chain perspective. But the return of manufacturing does not equate to a
return in manufacturing jobs, those jobs are gone and will never return. And
many, many more jobs will be lost within the coming years.

~~~
grecy
> _This also makes Trumps promise to bring manufacturing back to the US quite
> interesting...._

The voting in of Trump shows how conservative and not forward-looking the US
is. Vast swaths of the South are hell-bent on keeping things the way they are
(for better or worse).

The US has also been one of the "lower" OECD countries for a decade or two in
a lot of measures [1].

I won't be surprised if it's one of the last OECD countries to have a strong
manufacturing sector, requiring humans to do a lot of work that in other
countries has been replaced. Other countries will figure out how to rethink
economies, happiness, purpose, etc, and the US will just keep doing what it's
always done.

I think there will be tens of millions in OECD countries living with basic
income (or something in a similar vein) with tens of millions in the US are
still laboring at work.

[1] The US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in: infant
mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth,
healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years,
doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental
health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use,
incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality,
wealth inequality, and economic mobility.

~~~
disordinary
It's very easy to judge, but when you're in the situation that you've lost
your job of 20 years because the plant you work at is no longer competitive,
your bank is about to foreclose on your house, and you have to pull your kids
out of university because you can no longer pay the tuition. Then the promises
of the Trump campaign (and Brexit) become very persuasive. The scary thing is
if the politicians themselves actually believe in what they're saying.

But maybe they're right, the US has the benefit of being a huge country with
most of the resources it needs to survive within its borders, perhaps you tear
up trade agreements and start a policy of being more reclusive to protect your
industries and employment.

I see one huge advantage that the US has in a global world though, and that is
(at least for now) it is by far the dominant player in the web space.
Countries like Russia and China have their own services that are playing catch
up on their US counterparts, but they are still well behind for the most part.
In any future imaginable the web, or a successor is going to continue to be
the biggest part of our lives and therefore the worlds money will continue to
flow into the US.

Despite what I just said, I too worry about the US. There seems to be a deep
seated suspicion of anything socialist and most of the solutions to a
massively automated society seem to be socialist ones (i.e. a universal basic
income, or the government regulating businesses to provide for the common
good).

You'd hope that if it came to that scenario the US would follow suit and
provide for its citizens that cannot work. But there is precedent for the
opposite, the world went through a similar scenario in the 30's with the great
depression. Most countries in the OECD came out of that decade with
comprehensive social welfare systems, the US did not.

~~~
T-A
> In any future imaginable the web, or a successor is going to continue to be
> the biggest part of our lives

Reality check: the Internet economy (all of it, not just the web) contributes
~5% to US GDP [1].

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/250703/forecast-of-
inter...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/250703/forecast-of-internet-
economy-as-percentage-of-gdp-in-g-20-countries/)

I would also not be so quick to dismiss especially China's web companies. It's
a different world on the other side of the Great Firewall.

~~~
disordinary
I was talking about the flow of the worlds money in the future.

------
dfabulich
Many of the folks here like CGP Grey's video on this topic, "Humans Need Not
Apply"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)

But you should watch that in contrast with one of his newest videos, "The
Rules for Rulers"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)

> The more the wealth of a nation comes from the productive citizens of the
> nation, the more the power gets spread out, and the more the ruler must
> maintain the quality of life for those citizens. The less, the less.

> Now if a stable democracy becomes very poor, or if a resource that dwarfs
> the productivity of the citizens is found, the odds of this gamble change,
> and make it more possible for a small group to seize power.

~~~
imaginenore
That's why basic income is inevitable. We simply don't have enough jobs for
everyone.

~~~
dfabulich
I used to think this, but I no longer do. If we get mass automation, I think
we're going to get one of these outcomes:

1) Individuals have their own robots. For example, everybody gets their own
automated hydroponic garden, enough to provide them with sufficient calories.

2) A dictatorship seizes control of the automation and lets the people starve.

I think it's very unlikely that we'll have a welfare-capitalist society where
major corporations own mass automation, where the government taxes the
corporation so highly that government can pay for everyone else to survive.

Taxing mass automation to pay for basic income is just too fragile. If the
people themselves aren't providing wealth through productive labor, then at
some point, somebody will try to starve them instead of feeding them, and
they'll succeed.

~~~
zizee
Some throwaway thoughts:

Having all production automated will result in falling prices, including the
cost to automate something. This should result in a lot of competition,
driving prices down even more. In this scenario, it is difficult to imagine
someone having a monopoly on production for long, unless they are already a
dictator.

Dictators tend to have to keep at least a portion of their population happy,
otherwise they lose control. A large portion of the population with nothing to
loose (as they are starving) tends to result in revolution. If the cost of
production (or cost of imports) is close to 0, what motivation (beyond bond
style villany) does a dictator have to make their population starve?

If everyone is out of work, no one has any money to pay for the products of
the capital owners. What's the point of that?

~~~
dfabulich
> Dictators tend to have to keep at least a portion of their population happy,
> otherwise they lose control.

The portion can be very small. It has to include the military, and it has to
include the people involved in creating GDP, but if production is centralized
(e.g. because the nation's resources are in digging stuff out of the ground),
then the masses can be kept very poor.

Watch the "Rules for Rulers" video I linked above. Resource-rich dictators
don't need to provide public education or adequate roads, say nothing of
adequate food. "The people stay quiet, not because this is fine, or because
they're scared, but because the cold truth is: starving, disconnected
illiterates don't make good revolutionaries."

So can production be centralized in the face of mass automation? I think so.
Look at farming. Seizing control of all of the farms in the 1880s would be a
massive operation spanning the entire North American continent. Seizing
control of today's Big Farming conglomerates would be relatively
straightforward for a modern dictator.

Which is to say, we'll get through this _if_ the automation is decentralized,
but if it's like farming, where a few _expensive_ machines make all of the
food for hundreds of millions of people, then we're on a path to ruin.

~~~
henrikschroder
> we'll get through this if the automation is decentralized

I'm following the 3D-printing and makerspace movement because of this. It's
imperative that blueprints for vital objects to be 3D-printed aren't locked up
by copyrights.

------
anigbrowl
I have yet to see a political party with a coherent response to the looming
specter of automation. Don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favor of robotic
technology, but it's not compatible with existing capitalistic structures.

~~~
dogma1138
Well there is considerably less threat to workers in regards to automation in
the West than in the developing world, we've outsourced everything already to
the developing world, now the developing world is about the experience the
same thing.

The west has sufficient capital and social infrastructure to get by even
without a preemptive socioeconomic changes the developing world doesn't have
the luxury.

The girls that work in sweatshops in Bangladesh won't be able to retrain or
become master crafters selling overpriced crap on Etsy because you'll going to
be buying clothes from a dispensary that would 3D print or weave the clothes
in minutes to fit your size and specifications perfectly, while people in the
west can.

Truck drivers will likely to find other things to do since there will be
sufficient capital to pay for jobs, newer generations would have jobs that
don't exist yet, heck as long as the west keeps generating wealth the "self
employed neohipster economy" can continue growing, we have youtube stars that
make millions each year, and there aren't as few of them as you think, you can
make a pretty good money from selling bamboo sticks on Etsy, and when everyone
will have a 3D printer, weaver and CNC milling machine in their home or at the
local 7/11 people would be able to sell their designs on the printer's
template store.

Just like smartphones enabled everyone with even basic programming skills to
make a decent income from selling apps, like youtube and other sites enabled
people to make money by generating content, automation including on-demand
manufacturing will generate new opportunities.

But these opportunities will likely to be limited to the already privileged
just like every other opportunity beforehand, the developing world always gets
the scraps of the table.

~~~
disordinary
The west is going to loose millions of jobs, and you're talking about
replacing them with thousands.

The mainstay of developed countries are the service industries, but already
we've lost bank tellers, checkout operators, petrol station concierges, etc.
to automation. Next in line will be couriers, truck drivers, taxi drivers,
etc. Eventually most jobs will be lost. As a developer, if I'm lucky enough to
have a job in the future, it will be writing specifications for code that will
be automatically generated.

We aren't going to replace all of those jobs with hand crafted jewelry.

~~~
intended
What people need to consider is that new jobs are being made and economics has
not stopped working.

The question is - are the new jobs as well paying as the jobs which are lost.

~~~
anigbrowl
Some new jobs are being made, but not enough. Actually, serious economists are
beginning to worry that macroeconomics _is_ broken and that the existing
models of economic development are no longer functioning as expected. I think
the chief economist at the World Bank counts as a 'serious economist' and urge
you to read his paper described in this news article:
[http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/policy-
trends/...](http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/policy-trends/world-
banks-chief-economist-romer-says-macroeconomics-in-
trouble/articleshow/55508187.cms)

I really love economics, but you've got to realize that while microeconomics
is extremely rigorous and everyone should know some of it, macroeconomics
involves a great deal of ideological assumptions and hand-waving, and doesn't
have a good theory of technological disruption any more than it has a really
good theory of oligopoly.

------
dmichulke
I cannot help it but see this as a socialist opinion piece.

 _Clearly, without the introduction of a major tax on robots as capital
equipment, robot-based manufacturing cannot boost the fiscal revenues needed
to finance both social transfers, to support workers made redundant by robots,
and minimum wages, to stem a decline in the living standards of low- skilled
and medium-skilled workers._

If robots do the work AND there is a functioning market, this will have two
effects:

\- substitution of low-skilled labor

\- cheaper prices across the board

People most often forget the second item and ask for transfers as if people
were automatically entitled because socialism. But they will get their share
via the second item.

Also, work is infinite because human needs are infinite. Maybe servants in
households become more popular again, who knows? If work weren't infinite we
would all be unemployed already, according to the theories of 19th century
economists. Yet here we are, working, and repeating the same mistake.

Another argument is that in the worst case we can just destroy all robots (and
factories and wheels while we're at it), let's find out if we're better off
after that or worse.

Finally, the current economic mainstream calls out "deflation" as the biggest
threat to the economy, yet it is deflation that will increase real wages
automagically. Of course, highly indebted entities (such as your government)
will want you to believe otherwise so they claim that everything grinds to a
halt if we just have negative inflation for a few months. Also, Central Banks
would lose their justification if deflation is discovered to be not as bad as
claimed.

~~~
Retric
I make decent but not insane money and feel zero need to budget because there
is just not all that much stuff I want to buy. Unlimited wants is really an
unproven assumption not reality.

PS: Planned obsolecence for example is a direct result of limited wants.

~~~
dmichulke
While I do believe you don't want more stuff, I have a hard time believing you
wouldn't want more _time_ , be it via a chauffeur, cleaning service, butler,
cook, someone to run your errands or wait in line at the doctor.

There is also improvements you might want to have like

\- a faster computer \- a bigger apartment

Now I know these options are not on the table today because you can get along
without them but I doubt that if the price was low enough that you'd skip
them.

But if indeed none of this convinces you, let me know your profession - my bet
would be you are a well-earning Zen monk :)

~~~
majewsky
Why would I need to invest into having more time when work is supposedly going
away, this leaving me with more time automatically?

~~~
dmichulke
I did not say "need to", I said "want to".

Please comment below and say "I promise I will never want more time or more
money, neither today nor in the future" if this is untrue.

EDIT: I used _human needs_ before but I'm not sure this is entirely synonymous
to _human wants_

------
cconcepts
In my line of work, the recent increases in health and safety legislation and
resulting costs of compliance with having personnel on site in situations
where they might get harmed in any way means that the return for automating
processes is HUGE even compared to five years ago.

My prediction is that we will be forced into a situation where we have
millions unemployed and needing universal basic income because they were
educated to be employed in a system that suddenly lost its ability to accept
any risk to people....which coincided with the technological ability to
automate their jobs away.

The fact that people get hurt will eliminate their ability to be a viable
means of production in many industries.

~~~
abrkn
I like to think about the locomotive train. It must have been a very difficult
time to be in the horse business. Yet here we are.

~~~
lxmorj
And where are the horses?

~~~
intended
That's actually good enough to spread quickly.

------
rdtsc
Happened to father-in-law. Worked at a printing company. Before used older
machinery which needed more manual operations, more fixing and supervising.
Company bought a new German printer, it was automated and more advanced.
Required only a fraction of people from before to run it.

Owners tried not to be evil and kept a lot of employees. People who used to do
more intense manual work, were now standing around watching the new marvelous
German-engineered printer do its magic. Some of the positions were almost made
up just give workers a chance to stay longer.

At some point they offered people money to quit. Some took that option,
including father-in-law. Not sure what happened to others.

Basic income is a good idea. I am behind it. But people like my father-in-law
would be against taking it. They'd need to do some work, to feel like they are
useful and they are earning a paycheck. I think the idea has to be promoted
carefully so it doesn't seem like a handout or redistribution of wealth. Not
exactly sure what the solution would look like.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Why not just pay people to do what they were doing before? You still have to
paint, but you do it for free for whoever wants it. Since you're doing it by
hand, and can take as long as you need, you can do more personal work, for
people you care about. Paint a church. Paint a local business.

Have a skeleton organization that basically just works as a dispatcher and
collector of time sheets. You still only get paid for work done.

~~~
rdtsc
Could, be yeah. They tried some of that there and it worked for a bit. I think
the company probably found it unsustainable and first they offered a lump sum
for people to quit, then they might lay people off.

At some point the idea is that companies who automate and don't keep the
people because, well that's what makes them more money, will win or out-
compete those who don't.

Maybe basic income can be used to incentivize people to learn more -- learn to
program, social help (learn to help others, provide care for elderly), learn
to manage and maintain robots, maybe find a way to strengthen the community
(we'll pay you, but if you help build or maintain the local school you get
paid more...?)

------
tbrownaw
So, way less drastic than the number of agriculture jobs taken by machinery
(reduced from "practically everyone" to "the U.S.A. is at under 2%"). Cool.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
People don't realize that the tractor was basically the number one job killer
for humanity. We went from 70%+ of the population involved in farming to less
than 3%. We created new industries and jobs from that and we will do so again.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
What jobs? There is a limit to human needs. At some point the robots will
feed, clothe, transport, heal and entertain us all. What remains? Hobbies?

We will have to invent make-work things for folks to do I guess. And call it
work.

~~~
jlj
Art, music, creativity. Spending time with friends and family. Getting back to
basics. Going fishing, hang out at the beach. Stargazing. Plant a garden. No
commute or cubicles, work for the sake of doing interesting work. Traveling to
Mars for fun.

If all of our basic material needs are fulfilled, and we only take what we
need, it would be an interesting and rewarding ride.

That's the optimist side of me speaking. It could go the other way too if we
humans want to keep fighting and arguing over resources and power. I hope that
we could learn to get past that if everyone has what they need.

I think about the change my 94 year old grandmother has seen in her lifetime.
The technologies and types of jobs we have now compared to her early days are
mind blowing. The rate of change today seems orders of magnitude faster and
keeps accelerating.

Bring on the robots.

~~~
intrasight
My grandmother was born in 1901 and passed away in 2000. The list of new
technologies that came into being during her lifetime is astounding.

Your todo list is very sensible and, in my opinion, very doable. Other than a
couple items, I do it now. I would like to be optimistic and say that in the
future with more automation that many more could live as well as I do.

------
nopinsight
There are four major categories of jobs that can resist automation:

1) Entrepreneurs and organizers who initiate new products, services,
movements, or new styles of arts and interactions.

2) People experts--designers, entertainers, artists, experience enhancers,
high-level service personnels, value-enhancing salespeople--who understand
deep human needs and use their creativity, empathy, interpersonal skills, and
technology to realize them. Routine "people jobs" that customers wouldn't pay
more to interact with humans could be replaced by AI agents, in some cases in
humaniod robotic bodies.

3) Well-rounded analysts who can communicate with clients and stakeholders and
translate their needs into fairly high-level specifications for automation
technology to perform. Low-level programming jobs will increasingly become
more of a niche as software & platforms can adapt better through machine
learning and upcoming AI advances. More and more software will be
programmable, implicitly and explicitly, by end users.

4) Locomotion specialists--physical therapists, specialist nurses, dentists--
who integrate theoretical knowledge and experience with their flexibility and
dexterity. Robotics technology will take a good many decades before it can
cost effectively compete with these experts. I think we may achieve human-
level ability to think and solve problems flexibly before these people are
challenged.

 _(Let me know if there are categories I miss.)_

\--

It seems to me categories 1) and 2) above may have the most openings for
workers in the future. Education systems in most of the world are badly
inadequate for preparing people for those jobs, however. The worst-fit systems
are in developing countries where they are still heavily rooted in models for
training 20th century industrial workers. Open-ended educational models like
Montessori need to spread much more widely to prevent inequitable jobless
future for the masses.

Note: Basic income is orthogonal to having respectable occupations and
providing value to community. It is likely that human psychology has been
shaped, culturally and even evolutionarily, in a way that people need a
purpose and a valued occupation to live and feel well. (Perhaps the average
number of working hours will be reduced to 3-4 hours per day and people will
be free to pursue their hobbies and social activities.)

~~~
corecoder
What about caregivers, like baby sitters, nurses etc? Will we entrust
unattended machines with our children any time soon?

~~~
corecoder
Also: we are mainly talking of automating manufacture and transportation, but
are we that close to automating house and road building and repairing?

Edit: damn autocorrect

~~~
nopinsight
Yes, on-site constructions seem to be among those I left out. The locomotion,
weight-balancing, sensory, and reasoning skills required are close to or at
AGI level as well. It could probably be grouped with category 4 above.

------
Chathamization
I wouldn't be surprised if that happens in the developing world. As someone
else pointed out, if your economy changes from a mostly agricultural one to
one more similar to developed nations (where most people aren't involved in
agriculture), you're naturally seeing most of your old jobs disappear to
automation (and many new ones open up).

In the developed world we don't seem to be going through much of a automation
revolution at the moment - for example, U.S. productivity growth is actually
fairly low right now[1].

[1] [http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm](http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm)

------
chiefalchemist
Yet another election issue that never was. Let's hope everyone promised
manufacturing jobs doesn't get upset when they find out the truth

~~~
randomdata
There does seem to be a plan there. The President elect plans to abolish the
federal minimum wage[1]. Not even robots can compete with free.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/09/donald-
tr...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/09/donald-trumps-
excellent-economic-idea-abolish-the-federal-minimum-wage/)

------
Pica_soO
Good thing, that in our heads, we are just medieval community monkeys,
yearning for a role, a place in our daily life.

Well - the replaced already replaced a president, to replace those that
replace them, in the short and long run. Now- if everybody loses his place in
society's maze at this pace, then the unraveled community's will take up the
mace and smash the enlightenment straight in the face. The Last AI to go may
as well, be the UN-Report Writer in space.

"Anything that gives a human being meaning - as long as it chooses it
voluntarily, is off limits to the machines." Hammer that in stone, put it up
on Palo Alto Plaza.

The scape-goat hunt is in full progress, and once the Society runs out of
scape-goats, they will start to bite into the financial protective shields of
the transformation accelerators and propellers. He who runs out of propaganda
money last, shall sit upon the crumbling hill - victorious?

Makes for a interesting Fermi Paradox solution- society self-medievialized and
religious entrenched against progress and machinery until the cosmic dice ends
it.

------
known
Freedom from Robots [http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-
freedom.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm)

------
Lazare
I can't wait to live in that world.

The sheer increase in wealth and quality of life that this will represent, at
every stratum of society, is going to be immense.

~~~
cmurf
Let's pretend food, clothing, and shelter (structure) can be made cost free
due to automation/robots. Land itself right now is not free, it is either
owned or rented. In either case people need an income to pay for that. Where
does this income come from? Or, do you destroy land ownership? And if it's
destroyed, how is it determined who lives where and how much they get if all
land "costs" the same.

------
emblem21
Robots solve one problem very, very well: Labor shortages.

Rural America is poor, not because it is not rich in natural capital and real
estate, but because it suffers from a perpetual labor shortage. (14 percent of
the U.S. rural are spread across 72 percent of the Nation's land area)
Urbanization has a monopoly on talent at this point in time because of
globalization and the wealth structure of internationalist neoliberal
capitalism. (The Silicon Valley model)

Robotic labor will change that, especially given the strictness of UAV laws in
the US and the UK today. They are practically legislating that drones must
find profitability in low-value, low-population areas.

Fine. Challenge accepted.

To give another example of such labor shortages, 75% of the United Arab
Emirates population is Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, and Filipino immigrants
doing construction jobs. The other 2.3 million native UAE nationals can't
possibly engage in all of the ancillary labor opportunities that Dubai money
commands.

Wealthy nations are suffering from labor shortages all over the world and have
been for decades. They've raced to solve these problems in the only way they
know how: _attracting the flow of post-colonials because of standards of
living arbitrage_. (Very often, people used to being so poor being treated
like garbage in a wealthy nation is a significantly better prospect than
staying home) In the EU, for example, they can no longer print their own
currency, but each member state can still issue bonds. They are already
engaging in socialist taxation regimes, so raising taxes to pay for the bonds
is impossible. Therefore, you need to enrich your corporations by giving them
access to cheap labor and pray you can tax them before they allocate their new
found wealth in the Isle of Mann.

Unfortunately, this impulse isn't such a clean transition, as most of these
old world nations (with old world money) have the political, institutional,
and cultural reflex to give new blood two options: _Comply with your role in
our social pecking order 100% or be exiled /imprisoned/exterminated._ Race
riots, cultural flare-ups, demographic conflict, and other Huntingtonian
events can easily be exploited and exacerbated by political opportunists,
ultimately destabilizing the very social configuration that made your nation
attractive to begin with. No matter what the well-wishers say, when it all
goes belly up, civilizations always divide themselves along ethnic (the
American definition) lines.

If we continue to refuse (as many have since the 1970s) addressing the labor
shortage problem with our established institutions, people like me will be
forced to address it technologically and your cherished institutions and the
morality that they stand upon will be ground into the dirt upon its passing.

~~~
jordanb
A labor shortage means wages go up. If wages aren't going up then there's no
labor shortage.

An alternate theory for why resources aren't being exploited is an aggregate
demand shortfall. This would result in low capital utilization, low labor
utilization and slow growth.

Which model better fits the facts in the world today: the one which supposes
there's a labor shortage or the one that supposes a demand shortfall?

~~~
emblem21
> A labor shortage means wages go up. If wages aren't going up then there's no
> labor shortage.

This is correct in theoretical economics. This is incorrect in actual economic
practice only because theoretical economics has no game theory model for
political advantages. In fact, the entire concept of these advantages are
hand-waved away as "corruption". Labor shortage only justifies wage advantage
among specialist workers. (Programmers, lawyers, accounts, and other symbol
artisans) Labor shortage among common workers justifies _cost crisis_ for the
producer, forcing them to engage in political games via lobbyists to discover
advantage for the cheapest worker and alter the laws to make that worker
accessible. (The Ford model)

> An alternate theory for why resources aren't being exploited is an aggregate
> demand shortfall. This would result in low capital utilization, low labor
> utilization and slow growth.

The current aggregate demand shortfall happened after 2008, in which the Fed
absorbed all toxic mortgages and cut off the productive forces of the world to
supply the American housing boon. The entire global economy was geared for
that type of collective oil consumption, and when it became obvious Americans
couldn't pay their mortgages, the jig was up. Yes, this resulted in slow
growth for the PREVIOUS configuration of human interaction. (The Miltonian
model) Every housing opportunity short was taken off of the books AND off of
the market, depriving housing service labor wealth opportunities and
consolidating them all into the Fed. Thus, the housing market was forced into
an artificial labor shortage because of artificial inventory contraction. In
exchange, the banks were given an asset swap, flooding them with liquidity,
and they all sought profit opportunities overseas to pay themselves out of
outright nationalization in exchange for their hard assets. Thus. the post-war
American consumer role of first and last resort for world productivity was
intentionally stifled by Federal Reserve intervention, resulting in time-
specialized capital utilization, which cause low mass capital and mass labor
utilization, finalizing in slow growth.

> Which model better fits the facts in the world today: the one which supposes
> there's a labor shortage or the one that supposes a demand shortfall?

Current demand shortfall is a byproduct of the factors I have mentioned above,
and hardly a model worth extrapolating from unless you can eliminate the
Federal Reserve's role in the matter. In a world in which there is no consumer
of first and last resort, what is the alternative? China absorbs its own
productive capacity? African consumption absorbs… what? Facebook's
benevolence? You're left with an intentionally fractured world in which
nations are forced to realign their entire political and social arrangements
to maximize oil consumption from a dynamic list of competitors to stave off
politically destabilizing labor shortages. This means that, if oil is deprived
from your nation, you will absolutely experience a politically destabilizing
labor shortage! You will not be able to mobilize your masses to chase global
opportunity because you will be priced out of the game before you even start…
unless you engage in socialistic configuration to absolutely control prices,
and then you're just managing peak production limitations.

If my reasoning holds, then the question is thus: Is America experiencing an
oil shortage?

~~~
stale2002
Oil prices are lower than they have been in years. We can buy as much oil as
we want for cheap.

~~~
emblem21
Consuming oil means you are engaging in economic activity. If oil is cheap,
then the profits from that economic activity should be higher across the
aggregate of labor.

If oil is cheap and it is not being consumed, then the profits to be had
through its consumption _are not high enough_. If the oil is cheap and it __is
__being consumed, then the profits to be had through its consumption are _too
low_.

If the profits of oil consumption are not high enough, then what we are
actually describing is a labor shortage because the _human_ cost of living has
deterred additional oil consumption. Thus, labor that does not have to
shoulder such costs of living (robotic) CAN consume oil and achieve profits to
sustain its own consumption.

So if oil is cheap and no one is buying it, it is because we have a labor
shortage for that particular oil price point.

------
pilooch
Bernard?

------
c-smile
Don't worry! Mr. Trump will build the wall between us and robots. And those
robots will pay for it.

Hasta la vista!

------
treelovinhippie
I think what we need is a new economic paradigm whereby humans work in
symbiosis with AI and ever encroaching automation. There's a model I'm working
on where the base economic protocols are coded into a decentralized blockchain
platform like Ethereum.

Usually the knee-jerk easy response to automation is universal basic income.
And while I wish/want us to all have a UBI; those in the developing world will
definitely be the last groups on the planet to receive one.

The future vision of the blockchain is the complete dismantling of all
hierarchies and total autonomy at the individual level. So governments,
organizations, VC, companies, jobs etc are replaced with DAOs and blockchain-
based co-ops capable of the same or greater complexity and value-add without
the hierarchy.

The big issue I'm facing, and I think the whole ecosystem is facing, is how do
you transition the global economy to that future? It needs to be incremental
but rapid, familiar but new, to exploit existing human incentives and status
quo's while hiding all the unfamiliar crypto jargon behind the scenes such
that anyone can immediately and intuitively adopt the new economic protocol.

~~~
disordinary
I wonder if it's going to be that big a deal where you live, the huge
companies now know no borders.

We live in a world of such scale that it's nearly impossible to compete with
the companies that are established.

As we loose jobs to multinationals and automation then something has to change
in the way we structure our economies, because the income divide will grow as
the rich (who earn wealth from owning) will not suffer as much as the middle
class and poor (who earn money from working).

At the very least companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. Are going to
have to start paying fair taxes in any jurisdiction that they operate in. The
fact that technology will be cheaper and more accessible (see the SpaceX
internet satellite constellation) and no one will have jobs in the developed
or developing world, coupled with the fact that in general poorer countries
seem to have more natural resources (that can be automated but still generate
wealth for the house country), means that things might actually level between
the developed and developing.

Of course the big companies will be based in the US and Europe, but unless
you're giving every single person shares the money that they make will go to a
few. In this admittedly doomsday scenario the money will actually drop because
people won't be working to pay for services or buy products, but the scale
will be such that they will still be highly profitable.

Expect revolutions before that day.

