I think the Luddite Fallacy argument ignores two things:
1. The limits to human capabilities. By definition, 50% of people have an IQ below 100.
2.The declining marginal utility of innovation and consumption.Asymptosis
The Luddite Fallacy Fallacy
Steve Roth
14 comments:
Earlier retirements with robust public pensions then???? rsp,
What about the tremendous amount of long term neglect of the US infrastructure?
Wouldn't that make the macro economy look more "productive" than it really is?
This is THE REAL DEBT we are leaving to the grandchildren...
Rsp
***AO / AL***
https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Peter_Schiff
I've struggled with this issue. The question actually boils down to what defines sellable labor versus capital output. There are and will always be things that human can do for each other that they value and I doubt machine will ever be able to replace the very qualities of humanity that let us value things in the first place. On what basis does a machine decide what kind of products to produce? On what basis does a know a good job from a bad job?
So unless you believe in the development of a Strong AI that is able to read the qualities of human personal interaction as well as person can then you are stuck with simply fact that human generate values in the very act evaluation and choosing consumption preferences. If one believes that this is possible then one must not think very much of humanity to claim that all of human creavity, emotional responsiveness and interconnectness can by simulated by a program.
So the economic question is whether or not markets can shift to value human inputs before machine output can replace that labor. I say it depends on what cultural and political value that a nation wants to direct the market to produce will determine extent of displacement. If the culture say that everyone can and should contribute it will find ways to value input that machine cannot simulated but a culture that merely looks at work as a mechanical task and devalues human work then the displacement will be large.
I'm thinking of China and other Asian countries where "wenming" or civilization doesn't imply the material and physical structures implication that western word embeds. So the idea of not working is akin to not living and therefore idea of machine replacing all things for which humans can labor for money is simply wrong. Does a priest labor? Does a teacher? By what means does one mechanize such things without destroying the true value.
The problem we are having isn't labor being displaced by machines but humanity being devalued by mechanical and materialistic definitions of market values. The problem is a culture that believes in a machine like free market Gods that correctly value things and gives divine judgement based on monetary profits and sales.
If we take government and use it to direct human activity based on higher human values then the culture will change and market will driven by the values embedded in the institutions that govern it. It is our concept of what human being are capable of and should be rewarded for that is broken.
So if we have an economy based on valuing that which allows to express our human qualities and interconnectedness then the whole social Darwinian framework from which the Luddite question arises disappears.
Great stuff Sept...
another thing I see is that there is a lot in the world that is not getting done because "we dont have the money"...
Big coal railcar derailment down the road from our house today (20 cars, 2 girls killed) that bridge and the tracks look like they are from the 1800s I'm surprised it hasnt happened sooner, that railway is a disgrace... much other infrastructure is shit or quickly turning into shit... (we're still using the Brooklyn Bridge and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels for crying out loud)
If this "we dont have the money" falsehood was overcome, I guarantee we would be complaining there WASNT enough people to do all of the work even with the help of machines...
rsp
Septaeus7 The problem we are having isn't labor being displaced by machines but humanity being devalued by mechanical and materialistic definitions of market values. The problem is a culture that believes in a machine like free market Gods that correctly value things and gives divine judgement based on monetary profits and sales.
The starting point of Marx in his critique of Smith and Ricardo. Marx was a historicist whereas Smith and Ricardo were natural order thinkers influenced by 18th c. Deism and Newtonian mechanics. Thus Marx was able to see history in terms of the internal contradictions of various position that represented "moments" that gave rise to subsequent moments in reaction to these contradictions. Marx rejected the notion of economic "laws of motion" similar to the laws of motion in physics.
Marx was also a humanist who realized that it is man that gives life meaning and determines the values of a culture, instead of seeing meaning as eternal and objective (God-given) and values as "natural laws."
Since the time of Marx most thinkers have come to realize that meaning and values are human constructs relative to historical circumstance, and most scientists have also come to realize that the social sciences are not physics. Economists, not so much.
Matt, deteriorating infrastructure is deteriorating capital, and deteriorating capital results in falling rate of profit. Another insight of Marx.
The US is sipping behind as the emerging world comes online with fresh non-financial capital and becoming less competitive.
When greed via privatization of public commons takes over you end up with incompetence and an increasing gridlock economy:
http://www.thenation.com/article/169415/how-not-reconstruct-iraq-afghanistan-or-america?page=full#
I think the next decade will see a backlash against neoliberal/austerian policies, and more and more pushback:
"On Thursday, let's go visit the billionaire hedge-funders out to privatize our schools!"
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2012/08/on-thursday-lets-go-visit-billionaire.html
I think the next decade will see a backlash against neoliberal/austerian policies, and more and more pushback
This is precisely the point that Marx made about history being dialectical, with successive moments arising out of the "contradictions" of previous moments, i.e., their insufficiency owing to incompleteness. It stands in contrast to the natural order view that natural laws applying even to socio-economic and political phenomena are invariant across time, so that the equilibrium view based on price determination in markets is as scientific as natural sciences like physics. KKeynes recognized that to be non-sense and showed why, based on uncertainly, both ontological uncertainly (surprise) and epistemological uncertainly (humans do not possess perfect knowledge). In addition, Keynes showed that use value and exchange value differ in monetary economies, so that perfect competition, even if it existed, does not optimally distribute use value to maximize utility, as supposed — something also noticed by Marx.
So, yes, we will finally get over this neoliberal nonsense because it doesn't deliver on its promise — and cannot because the assumptions are unrealistic.
The wage-labor model breaks down as productivity approaches the maximum limit. At some level of aggregate productivity there is a diminishing return on "log-rolling" activities.
Tom, I notice you've not covered recent voter suppression tactics. Do you not see that as a meaningful enough of a trend?
It's something I am watching, Trixie, and it is not clear to me yet how crucial it will be to the outcome of the election. But it is another sign of rising fascism and more overt racism on the right, as is the suppression of women.
I agree with David. There is a growing disconnect between production of goods and need for labor. I'm thinking that a Guaranteed Annual Income might be needed in the near future. Paid for by those who control the means of production.
Government has heavily subsidized economy 2.0 in every imaginable way while heavily taxing economy 1.0 and providing little policy support. It can hardly be claimed that low skill individuals are not in demand in the world. The rest of the world has been competing to get the jobs that america's elites decided were not worth it and have become incredibly wealthy doing it. Most Americans -- regardless of IQ -- don't benefit from our trade, education, industrial and tax policies. This is more orthodoxy mythology that government should only promote 'good middle class jobs.'. Anything else is just looking to the past? Idiotic.
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