Organizing society around jobs has run it's course

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 1:37 pm

http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/2011/9/7/c ... olete.html
An interesting article that ties into a lot of what has been said on here before (wage slaves, you don't need to work to have value, etc.).
So, if as the article suggests, neither communism or libertarianism can work (I agree they are both doomed to fail and fail badly), what could work?

jzt83 · Post by **jzt83** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:14 pm

Perhaps cutting out a lot of the useless gov't jobs and significantly reducing speeding on gov't programs (esp military), the federal gov't could just give every person over the age of 18 a monthly check of say $1000. We've become so efficient at producing stuff that we really do need that many workers.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:57 pm

That is only one side. As someone who has worked in both private industry and government, there are plenty of useless jobs in both. Thus, the costs of what we buy are also too high.

Post by **jacob** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:20 pm

After mulling it over for 3 minutes, the only solution I can see is to reunite extensive families and/or tribes. These are the only cases where I would work for free (AND give my money away). The problem is that jobs are currently the dominant means of redistributing money. Even as a great deal of those jobs are make-shift busy-work, they are needed because most people consider it unfair that they should have to give their money to people who don't work. (Somewhat more people consider it fair that they should get money from other people.)

Dragline · Post by **Dragline** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:24 pm

Prior to the industrial revolution, most people's lives were organized around family or extended family units. People were most likely to learn their "trade" or skills from other family members. But most people lived agrarian lives and did not have jobs so much as they had skills.
I think we might be headed back in this direction, particularly society gets older and if economic times become harder. And the internet allows families to remain closer even when they are apart physically.
The only other types of communities that were successful long-term were ones based on religion -- everything from Mormons to Mennonites to Catholic nuns. Those still exist but are less prominent.

George the original one · Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:37 pm

More sales staff and order fulfillment people are needed as a result of all the automated production.
Also, in agriculture, only the staple crops are automated. Orchards, vineyards, berries, and meat production still require intensive manual labor in order to make it to market.
Would you choose to do any of those jobs?

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:20 pm

I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.

george · Post by **george** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:57 pm

Economists have been signalling the change in the workplace for at least decades. J.K. Galbraith wrote an easy read on the subject. The affluent society.
The traditional idea of work is changing. And we can be part of the movement. I walked out on a job 7 years ago and decided I would never work on a job unless I thought it was worthwhile AND ensured I could maintain a satisfying life.
Since then unexpected opportunities just seem to fall at my feet. The most recent case = the company I left approached me. I now work from home, hours I want. I earn in one day what I used to earn in a week. Its temporary, but that's exactly how I want it.
So we can be part of the solution - live frugally, save, watch your bottom line and be prepared to stand up for (or walk out for) what you believe in.

Chris L · Post by **Chris L** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:14 pm

It's a pretty big problem to keep people busy and out of trouble, huh? Jobs give people purpose and schedule because they probably couldn't do it if they had to do it all themselves.
Family and community would be great places to explore, both of which have been killed by work.
Women staying at home would be wonderful....you know, and raising families. That instead of leaving the house and outsourcing it. This would put men back to work, and half the household outsourced work. It's really not a bad way to live. The remaining jobs would probably be pretty vital and also probably easier and more meaningful.
We could really take advantage of all the wonderful technology and machines we've invested. I've marveled about what little work people need to do anymore to have a leisurely life. Most can't get out of the box to take advantage of it though.

tuixiuren · Post by **tuixiuren** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:16 am

Not sure if this belongs in this thread, but it seems pretty close. There was an interview today on Marketplace with one of the authors of "The Wage Slave's Glossary." Their previous book was "The Idler's Glossary." They seem to not be extremely in love with the current system of work in our society.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/disp ... e-of-work/

mikeBOS · Post by **mikeBOS** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 4:42 am

There are some discussions about this issue when discussing the "everything machine". That is, a nano-tech machine that constructs things at an atomic level that could essentially produce anything you desire out of thin air. So the only commodities would be the energy needed to run it and the software needed to program it. But if the machine itself could produce an endless array of PV panels, and if there's an open source software movement for it, essentially every physical object you could want is free. One man makes one everything machine, then uses it to self-replicate itself and create millions of them for anyone who wants one.
It seems there are 2 problems to solve as machinery brings labor closer and closer to obsoletian. 1. How to distribute the wealth. If a few thousand people can essentially feed and furnish a nation of millions, how do you go about distributing the abundantly cheap stuff? 2. What do the masses do all day without a manager to tell them what to do?

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 5:23 am

Mike, everyone knows that once you invent replicators, you'll need a bunch of people to fly your starships so you can fight Romulans.
Seriously, though:
http://craphound.com/down/Cory_Doctorow ... ingdom.htm

Post by **jacob** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:21 am

@mikeBOS - Increase the size of government to 99.99% and the marginal tax rate on the few thousand to 99.99%. It would be like today, but more extreme.
Social systems and customs change much slower than technology.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 1:17 pm

From my point of view it's not that jobs need to be eliminated, but how these jobs are structured needs to be eliminated. We still structure jobs like everyone works on an assembly line. People show up at a set time and leave at a set time. Instead it should be production based. This is what you have to do and when it's done you are done until next week.
"1. How to distribute the wealth. If a few thousand people can essentially feed and furnish a nation of millions, how do you go about distributing the abundantly cheap stuff? 2. What do the masses do all day without a manager to tell them what to do?"
Huge...huge issues.
Wealth: It's not the Bill Gates' of the world that really bother me, but the Steve Ballmer's and Jack Welch's. Gates at least created something (though is what he created worth is $50B or so in compensation...probably not), but it is easy to see that Ballmer didn't come close to earning his billions.
Aimless massess: Eugenics? I'm actually being serious. Do we try and breed/manipulate genes to create more rationals and idealists, and reduce guardians (the aimless). To be clear, I'm not talking about killing anyone.

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 1:53 pm

@Chad and eugenics--I'm convinced now that as a species we are hardwired for worship. And I don't just mean religion. Go to any celebrity event or college football game or Berkshire annual meeting to view secular worship in action. I wonder if our need to worship is to make sure that we have very few chiefs and mostly indians to function better as a society. (sorry for the non-pc analogy)
Maybe we need to revive the ERE dating thread and start actively breeding more rationals and idealists.

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 2:22 pm

Are mtbi types inherited?

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 2:42 pm

@dragoncar

As with everything genectic/life it's probably a little bit of both nature and nurture, but just a little push away from the current standard might be all we need.
@jennypenny

We are definitely hardwired for worship, but some of us more than others. This is why I made an extreme suggestion of eugenics.
"Maybe we need to revive the ERE dating thread and start actively breeding more rationals and idealists." - Unfortunately, we would still plan and make rational decisions, which means we would never really make a dent in the population difference. We aren't the rabbits.

EMJ · Post by **EMJ** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 4:39 pm

Unless "the abundantly cheap stuff" is magically created w/o using any non-renewable resources cheap stuff is finite. Which resource we run out of first depends on what cheap stuff is made.
The question of how to go about distributing the abundantly cheap stuff is temporary. If nothing else, the end of cheap fossil fuel will be the end of cheap transportation/distribution.

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:12 pm

@dragoncar--I asked my sister who has a PhD in this area. She said she was taught in college that no, these types were a learned behavior, but that view is changing rapidly. As Chad said, it's probably a bit of both.

Bendoza · Post by **Bendoza** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 1:55 am

I watched the Jaron Lanier video that was referenced in the article a few days ago and one thing he mentioned stood out to me: we need to monetize a whole lot more of what we do. Maybe that's not as crazy an idea as it sounds although there are certainly good and bad ways to monetize.
The way I interpret his argument is that we've lacked for innovation in monetization for a while now (see also the book: The Great Stagnation). There are Internet companies that provide services we'd all miss if they went away, yet we don't directly pay for them. There are newspapers we rely on that seem to have perpetually declining revenues. There are websites (such as Jacob's) that provide tons of value, but don't realize a monetary value in proportion. Similarly there are jobs that provide great benefits to society as a whole yet are unpaid (parenting -- as an aside, you could argue that a two-earner family that hires a full-time nanny is one indirect and crappy way of monetizing parenting). And there are unaccounted behaviors that save great deals of money for individuals and society (maintaining a healthy lifestyle) that we almost completely ignore.
The capitalism we know seems like it is ideally suited to the Industrial Age but has some trouble appropriately rewarding a lot of the work we do or value we create today. It seems like it's easier to measure utility in an industrial economy than an information and service based one. Not that capitalism isn't adaptable, it just seems like we're lagging behind in the evolution of the system itself. And it seems to me that a capitalism that accounted better for what we're building, creating and doing today wouldn't necessarily have to be based on the employer/employee wage model that we've been accustom to for the last century. And getting back to the topic of the thread, maybe that's how we can substitute something else (at least in part) for traditional employment income.