From: doug@testsys.isis.org (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: FAR future programs
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 92 19:12:45 EST
Reply-To: doug@uuisis.isis.org
Distribution: na
Organization: DistNet Technical Support

In article <BxD9xx.MF3@ccu.umanitoba.ca> (Stuart Brown) writes: 

> In article <Bwzy6p.Iv@ucunix.san.uc.edu> balesej@ucunix.san.uc.edu
(Eric J Bales) writes:

> >In article <1992Oct30.085923.20896@ugle.unit.no> ta@itk.unit.no
(Trond Andresen) writes

> >>Here is my scenario: A society where a small percentage of the
> >>population oversee automatic processes in manufacturing and commerce.
> >>The industry will be running nearly without
> >>human work-hours. So what do the other 95% do? Before I try to answer that

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution there have been hopes
expressed that the increased productivity and reductions in industrial
labour inputs would yield a golden age where almost no one had to work
and people could apply themselves to spiritual growth or poetry.

However, that is not what has happened.  Today in Canada something
like 60% of the workforce is employed in the 'service' sector.  That
would include such things as teachers, policemen, salesmen, mechanics,
waiters, postmen, drivers, consultants, politicians, etc.  etc.  and
all those whose work does not actually involve making things.

This is the most rapidly growing segment of the population. Now I'm no
economist, but it's clear to me that even if you automated ALL
industrial production, you only knock out 40% of the workforce.

While many people dislike their jobs, without a doubt, there are also
many people who very much like their jobs and would work, if they
could, even if they didn't have to.

I do think that work, if we define it as an active contribution to and
participation in the society is something which most people actually
want, and maybe even need.

So even if we eliminate most jobs in industrial production through
automation, and greatly reduce most tedious and repetitive labour
through automation (which is happening anyway), we still have an awful
lot of people working or wanting to work.

> The above scenario reminds me very much of the Star Trek TNG universe
> where Jean-Luc answers the question "What will I do now?"
> by saying: "This is the 24th century.  All basic needs are provided for
> all citizens by automated manufacturing centers.  You can look forward
> to doing whatever interests you."
> 
> If society can painlessly produce all the basic needs for everyone, then
> why this obsession with how each and every person can pay for thier needs
> and get paid for thier choice of work?

There is the problem of growth and change. If everything stays the
same then I think you could just take the 'total wealth' and divide it
evenly among the members of society and do ok. Everyone gets the same
share of the collective wealth. Why not?

Well things do change and instruments such as markets are pretty good
at re-allocating labour and capital as demand (need?) shifts.

Then there is the problem of the collective. The choice of work is not
entirely an individual choice. A great many things that need doing
require some sort of cooperation among large numbers of people. That
requires organization and management and usually capital. We are
talking investment capital here and not 'wages'. How are such groups
going to get capital aside from offering a return on investment? One
way, that practiced in the old USSR, is just politics. Getting capital
to build a factory was a political problem. Didn't matter if you could
make an efficient factory, and it didn't matter if the factory
produced something that people wanted. It just mattered that you could
convince 'the powers that be' to approve the capital needed for your
idea.

I'm not sure politics is any better than the market when it comes to
deciding who gets and who doesn't get access to crucial resources. 

Ronda will remind us that the USSR wasn't democratic. Yes, that is a
problem. But a new idea might well have a harder time attracting
enough interest to 'pass' in a democratic setting where you actually
have to convince a majority of people to go along with allocating you
capital. Geez, if you'd put the question of capital for the Wright
Brothers' on a referendum ballot in 1902, do you think it would have
passed?

So the political process, whether it is oligarchic or democratic is
not necessarily going to be able to make these kinds of decisions. And
of course, the free market without regulation becomes totally
destructive for the majority of participants and pretty soon all the
resources are controlled by a few players and the rest are at their
mercy.

So we need, and I think history shows this fairly well, a mixture of
all these elements. We need a strong state presence, a strong
democratic check, and a strong free market. Each rather checks each
other and in the end, I think, more needs are met more effectively
than if you put the entire burden on any one approach to resource
allocation.

What *could* be done and might be kinda interesting would be to
legislate a 20 hour work week. That's gonna A) solve the unemployment
problem and B) provide to workers at least a large measure of the
benefits associated with not having to work at all. I guess you'd have
to phase it in over 10 years or something.

> What would happen if we did away with money for most transactions in America
> right now?  Well first of all, everyone would rush out and grab lots of TV
> sets and fancy foods and snazzy cars etc.  So we have automated factories
> that churn this stuff out  untill everyone  has all of the ordinary stuff
> that they want.

Automation is expensive you know? And labour isn't the only input cost
for factories. There are also raw materials and energy. Of the price
you pay in a store, about half goes to distribution, packaging and
marketing costs, and only about half to production costs. For everyone
to go rush out and 'grab' a TV, lots of people have to do lots of work
to get the TVs built in the first place, and then moved to a place
where it is convenient for you to 'grab' them. And someone has to take
on the job of telling you where you can 'grab' them.

This all requires a lot of labour and a lot of sophisticated
organization as well as roads and railways . . . and would you really
want truck drivers to be 'automated'?

It's a nice idea but when I think about implementing it, I see that I
am going to need a large and well-trained work force to get that TV to
where you can 'grab' it.

> Next, no one who hates thier job goes to work any more.  Good riddance!
> Hopefully most of these jobs can be automated.  For those jobs that
> still require human attention, we have to find something special to 
> offer as compensation?  Well, there will always be some things in
> short supply that can't be churned out by the auto-factories. Artworks,
> of course, but also choice houses in beautiful locations, special foods
> that must be grown- not synthesized, and resource intensive hobbies
> like dogfighting WWII aircraft.

This problem was faced a long time ago and somebody came up with the
neat idea of a controlled money supply. You know, a single commodity
(like gold or silver) which could be equated to all other commodity
values such that, given a marketplace, you could exchange the one
commodity for any other. Very efficient actually.

You have just described the reason why money is so important to a
mixed economy. Without it, you have to barter in commodities directly
and that is very ineffecient.

> OK, so now what does everyone do?  This has already been described
> by others in this thread.  Lots of scientific research, and Art, lots
> of human care (teaching, health care, etc.).  I feel that left free
> from wants, a lot of people would choose to make a contribution to
> society- and the net result would be technical progress at a faster 
> rate than in our current fear driven capitalist system.  I'm sure that
> there will be an ample supply of tecnophiles to keep the gears of the
> automated industy oiled as long as some attractive compensations are
> offered.
> We really are not so far away from making this type of society
> technically feasible. We already produce wheat and sugar, radios and
> digital watches at prices so low that it would be more efficent to
> give them away- if only the producers could receive thier needs in
> return.

It is technically feasible to do away with maybe 80% of all labour and
still meet the basic material needs of people in Canada. The problem
is that most people *want* to work and given a chance to work, they
*will* work.

=doug

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uuisis!testsys!doug