What Brexit tells us

[DonQuixote99]

Well, it's certainly on Corbyn's radar


https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-to-launch-review-into-universal-basic-income


and probably the Lib Dems' too. I don't know how radical it is, given that all the hard work would have to have been done before it serves the interests of anyone but capital: that is, it would require a radical left government to implement it, otherwise it would be most likely just be used to cut wages and public services.

I think drood's right: the future is either billionaire bunkers or a total redistribution of wealth. I'm pretty sure, based on current form, that the entire political establishment, apart from the Corbynites, would cleave to the former if it came down to it. The solution to the problem, if it comes at all, is not going to seem reasonable to many, and I don't think it will come from politicians.

The thread up to it's point, summed right up.

Now, here's the thing. People are saying 'how do we do anything, the billionaires won't want to. They will never pay taxes (inidividual or corporate) to fund a guaranteed income for all.'

Obviously, the answer is for the government to just create the money. People will say "won't that just create horrible inflation?' Not if they are careful about it, and don't create too damn much. The billionaires (soon to be trillionaires) will play a vital role here. They wind up piling up all the money in their personal and corporate hordes, and doing nothing with it. So, it is effectively destroyed. So that counterbalances the money created by the government, and the economy rolls along.

 

[Paul R]

The one thing that would make this whole boring episode more fun would be much more creative names for the other side you all seem keen on naming. Is bremoaners the best we can muster?

puerophiles.

Although perhaps a bit Graeco-Latin for some.

Paul

 

[gassor]

Originally Posted by Seanm View Post

I think drood's right: the future is either billionaire bunkers or a total redistribution of wealth.

People take slogans like "a total redistribution of wealth" with a pinch of salt. They know it will not happen and are not actually asking for it either fearing that it would require something like a one-party state to make it happen as well as a collapse of industry in the UK.

I don't know why people think profound changes can be introduced without enormous consequences.

People want good jobs and rising living standards for them and their families not pie in the sky.

 

[gassor]

The thread up to it's point, summed right up.

Now, here's the thing. People are saying 'how do we do anything, the billionaires won't want to. They will never pay taxes (inidividual or corporate) to fund a guaranteed income for all.'

Obviously, the answer is for the government to just create the money. People will say "won't that just create horrible inflation?' Not if they are careful about it, and don't create too damn much. The billionaires (soon to be trillionaires) will play a vital role here. They wind up piling up all the money in their personal and corporate hordes, and doing nothing with it. So, it is effectively destroyed. So that counterbalances the money created by the government, and the economy rolls along.

You are aware that the last paragraph is economic gobbledygook, aren't you?

 

[DonQuixote99]

You are aware that the last paragraph is economic gobbledygook, aren't you?

You mean my last paragraph, or Seanm's?

If you mean mine, well, it may be, but try to just go with it for a moment. What if the government's new way of 'injecting liquidity into the economy' was to create new money, as it does, but for the purpose now of sending some millions of people a thousand or two a month? What would happen?

 

[Colin Barron]

You mean my last paragraph, or Seanm's?

If you mean mine, well, it may be, but try to just go with it for a moment. What if the government's new way of 'injecting liquidity into the economy' was to create new money, as it does, but for the purpose now of sending some millions of people a thousand or two a month? What would happen?

Indirectly they already are it is called the deficit; £69 billion a year which is about £1100 for every person in the UK.

 

[stephen bennett]

People want good jobs and rising living standards for them and their families not pie in the sky.

But there's the rub gassor—what jobs are these going to be in the future?

There's no brave new world of employment coming, just more and more automation and expert systems replacing the well paid jobs we have now.

Hardly any sector is safe from this.

Trump dreams of an America where thousands of workers are employed building Fords. This will put manufacturing costs up significantly.

People won't be able to afford these cars as the prices would be astronomical compared to robot-built ones and quality would suffer.

This is the future. The green people (those who own the tech) will be extremely rich, the oranges just managing and the yellow poor. Then the greens will become poorer as the yellow/oranges will no longer afford to buy the services the greens offer as the tail gets thinner.

There are two answers it seems to me—redistribution from the greens or a return to agrarian living without technology. The UK and US are planning to make the greens richer and the head fatter..

Stephen

 

[gassor]

You mean my last paragraph, or Seanm's?

If you mean mine, well, it may be, but try to just go with it for a moment. What if the government's new way of 'injecting liquidity into the economy' was to create new money, as it does, but for the purpose now of sending some millions of people a thousand or two a month? What would happen?

I was referring to your paragraph.

The economic impact of such a scheme would depend on the scale and way it is done. Finland are trialling the idea so we'll have a better idea when it is complete. If it means doing away with personal tax allowance (to compensate as in Guardian article) I think there could be a lot of resistance.

 

[gassor]

But there's the rub gassor—what jobs are these going to be in the future?

There's no brave new world of employment coming, just more and more automation and expert systems replacing the well paid jobs we have now.

Don't need a crystal ball to see there will be not be a "brave new world of employment", but maybe it won't happen as quickly as many are suggesting. The technical rate of progress is determined by the level of profit it can produce. Businesses will not rush into automated systems if there is no effective demand for the product they produce.

 

[stephen bennett]

Who will these goods and services be produced for? What will the multitudes without jobs get?

Precisely. Who indeed?

Stephen

 

[stephen bennett]

Don't need a crystal ball to see there will be not be a "brave new world of employment", but maybe it won't happen as quickly as many are suggesting. The technical rate of progress is determined by the level of profit it can produce. Businesses will not rush into automated systems if there is no effective demand for the product they produce.

But that is the point. The greens will get fat no matter how little comes from each orange and yellow as long as there are a lot of them available—until it's too late.

Unless the greens are forced to redistribute their wealth and we change the model, we're buggered.

Yet we appear to be heading in the opposite direction. More state support for the greens, less for the other colours.

Stephen

 

[Colin Barron]

The 'system' has failed a lot of people in the USA. They have now been promised a way of getting better prospects that makes sense to them. That's why they voted for Trump, everything else is peripheral.

You could have stopped at "They have now been promised a way of getting better prospects". The same is happening in France and Italy.

 

[sean99]

The technical rate of progress is determined by the level of profit it can produce. Businesses will not rush into automated systems if there is no effective demand for the product they produce.

Not true - if one company within a business sector automates and can then undercut its competitors then they'll all be forced to do it because consumers buy the least expensive, quality being equal. Capitalism is in effect a race to the bottom, where only the "most productive" companies survive. Unfortunately "most productive" means fewer workers.

For example you could start a car company making hand built cars so as to provide employment, but you wouldn't be able to sell many as they'd cost twice as much and nobody would buy them.

I agree with you that eventually capitalism, aided by automation, will destroy itself, but I don't see a mechanism for all the big companies to come together and agree to stop undercutting each others' efficiencies so as to keep employing people. In fact that would be illegal in many countries, and growth of "productivity" is still lauded in most advanced economies.

This level of big-think (stopping us getting to a point where capitalism collapses) can ONLY be started at the inter-governmental level, but at the moment we're still going in the wrong direction, with countries trying to devalue and out-compete each other.

By the way it's a mistake to think that this collapse of capitalism I'm talking about is a sudden thing like a stock market collapse. It's been happening for the past 40 years: it's all around us : it is the cause of the widening inequalities in developed nations and the emergence of a permanent underclass who might previously have worked boring but stable mining or manufacturing jobs. The underclass will continue to grow as more professions are sucked into it and it will continue until the "Davos class" are forced to share the wealth around and reinvent capitalism.

 

[Michael J]

For example you could start a car company making hand built cars so as to provide employment, but you wouldn't be able to sell many as they'd cost twice as much and nobody would buy them.

Like this?

 

[sean99]

Cottage industry can't support mass employment.

 

[Michael J]

Cottage industry can't support mass employment.

How about a mass of cottage industries?

 

[gassor]

Not true - if one company within a business sector automates and can then undercut its competitors then they'll all be forced to do it because consumers buy the least expensive, quality being equal. Capitalism is in effect a race to the bottom, where only the "most productive" companies survive. Unfortunately "most productive" means fewer workers.

Sorry to produce one of these multibit answers. Automation will occur in a piecemeal way, and while it does wages will fall as demand for workers fall. Firms maintaining a high labour input will mostly still be competitive for quite a while. Automation is hugely expensive and can take many years to repay the investment which will put off many businesses. I don't see lower prices being offered by the most automated car manufacturers.

For example you could start a car company making hand built cars so as to provide employment, but you wouldn't be able to sell many as they'd cost twice as much and nobody would buy them.

Look at the waiting lists for Morgan or Ferrari cars.

I agree with you that eventually capitalism, aided by automation, will destroy itself, but I don't see a mechanism for all the big companies to come together and agree to stop undercutting each others' efficiencies so as to keep employing people. In fact that would be illegal in many countries, and growth of "productivity" is still lauded in most advanced economies.

I don't think capitalism destroying itself at all, it will mutate and grow.

By the way it's a mistake to think that this collapse of capitalism I'm talking about is a sudden thing like a stock market collapse. It's been happening for the past 40 years: it's all around us : it is the cause of the widening inequalities in developed nations and the emergence of a permanent underclass who might previously have worked boring but stable mining or manufacturing jobs. The underclass will continue to grow as more professions are sucked into it and it will continue until the "Davos class" are forced to share the wealth around and reinvent capitalism.

Lefties have been predicting the imminent death of capitalism for over 100 years and it is still trundling along more healthily in world terms than ever.

 

[DonQuixote99]

Lefties have been predicting the imminent death of capitalism for over 100 years and it is still trundling along more healthily in world terms than ever.

Sure, the capitalists are healthy. The world I'm not nearly so sure about.

 

[DonQuixote99]

I was referring to your paragraph.

The economic impact of such a scheme would depend on the scale and way it is done. Finland are trialling the idea so we'll have a better idea when it is complete. If it means doing away with personal tax allowance (to compensate as in Guardian article) I think there could be a lot of resistance.

Ah, then you don't know what will happen. You just know my conceptual-level idea-spinning is 'gobbledygook.' Well, I think much of traditional economics is gobbledygook, designed to say that whatever 'markets' can be made to do to pile wealth up at the top is 'right.'

The top is now a humongous unproductive sink for capital, and it appears impossible to change that short of a cataclysm. So stop trying to change it, and tweak the system to support the masses too, with substantial guaranteed income fed by created fiat money. The top will get to string multiples more zeros off the ends of their fortune-scores. Everyone will be happy!

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Automation makes sense in the realm of producing consumer goods. But there must be any number of other jobs which can be taken on by those relatively unskilled, uneducated masses currently staring down the barrel of long term unemployment. I'm not talking about baristas, waitresses and bar staff, but more 21st century tasks such as large scale environmental remediation projects, for example, or work in social care or community service. These are more difficult to automate, and there is clearly a huge need for them. It is simply a matter of paying for them, surely?

It seems to me that this could be integrated into any sort of universal income. Universal income could perhaps expect a certain, relatively modest, commitment to putting in some time in those sort of jobs in return. No doubt there will always be that rump of hardcore wasters but, to be honest, they will always be with us and I think the actual numbers are overstated for effect, most of the time. We might just choose to ignore them. I think we'd be happier that way.