You cannot stop progress, you will simply be sidestepped.

Progress is not always a good thing for everyone, for every innovation there is at least one casualty. Recent innovations have had many casualties.

The trick is to not think that change will never happen in your own sphere, but to know that change will occur and plan accordingly. The famous analogy of the IBM Selectric typewrite repairman thinking that he had a secure job niche, is so very, very true.

 

Give that lady a gold star next to her name and a luncheon date with stumbler.

Bertrand Russell is one of my favorite writers.

 

Selling on straight commission is always there for those who don't want their compensation based upon the number of hours worked.

 

By that way of thinking a Doctor after having his school paid for by the govt does not need to be paid more than 25 bucks an hour....

Everyone should work to their level of intelligence and be paid the same...

If the best one can do is flip hamburgers he should still get 25 bucks an hour...

 

Kimiko,
Do you have any ideas about creating a more equitable distribution of wealth and leisure?
If you do, I would like to know your solution to the problem.

 

There is no doubt that the analogy you and Russell makes is a valid one, however you both fail to see the real problem.

It isn't that having the capability to produce twice the pins should mean that the production should stay static and the hours workers are employed halved across the board. Instead, the management needs to either expand the market for the pins, so that the increased production is absorbed. Or, the management, through innovation, finds another use for the production capacity for other products.

Thinking inside the box gets you closed out of the world.

And the redistribution of wealth can never work, as long as there are people willing to do nothing in return for their sustenance.

 

It would require a much larger, more powerful, and expensive government than there is popular support for.

 

I have done that a lot in my life but so much now is bought on line....
From computers to furniture to cars and airplane tickets....

Also all those order takers are being replaced by inventory control by computer with automated restocking systems...

When I spend more than a few hundred on something I have searched stores and prices and products online and then just drive to where I like the deal and buy...fuck the sales guy as I know what I want....

Things are changing fast....

 

Then make them do something for their sustenance.

 

You are wanting to develop a world where everyone works no mater what and then the total paycheck is given to the govt...

The govt then plays all the necessary stuff....and then what is left over is divided by the population so that everyone gets a the same....

That might be a script for a science fiction movie...

 

Or perhaps a new political movement, now what could we call it???........Umm, thinking, how about communism???. :excited:

 

There are many ways to get your pay, the least rewarding (financially) is work for someone else while getting an hourly wage.

Straight commission or a combination of lower hourly wage and a commission, seem to work very well in both production and employee morale. Piece work, production quota based bonuses, etc. also work well.

 

LOL...come to think of it I did study the Communist Manifesto in the 12th grade govt class....<40 years ago>

would that be China now with a capitalist form of govt thrown in?

 

The government run by lobbyists and professional politicians whose policies enabled the financial disaster of 2007-8?

I think I will pass on that idea.

 

People paid by the hour tend to put in hours rather than putting in work.
One could say the say of some salaried employees as well.
Compensation needs to be tied to production.

 

Thats actually a brilliant way of looking at things. Sadly...it ignores the short term profit margin in favor of long term stability. That's not the form of capitalism that is practiced in this day and age. Short term profits are the only thing matters that anymore.

 

Then let's take it to the ultimate extreme. Suppose that, sometime in the future, all work is done by robots and machines, and there is no need for human beings to lift a finger. The entire population is, in essence, unemployed. How, then, will we decide who is entitled to what compensation?

 

Robot made cars and merchendise; robotic telemarketing; soon robotic cars and trucks. cant WAIT to see what's going to happen to Mexico when robotic manufactureing hits there in force and WHEN we develop robotically controlled landscape maintinance equipment(robomowers here, now robo hedge trimmer,planters, waterers,pruners,pickers,harvesters).

I have a vision; it's of a pile of horsebuggys,model T's, Victrola's,Typewriters,8 track tapes, cassets, toped by a Man with "Obsolete" stamped on his back.

Unfortunately you coperate MORONS there are NO robo Customers!

the more people you put out of work, the less people patronize your and others buisnesses. :wall:

 

Excellent question.

In that world many other changes will have occurred: changes in health care needs and delivery; changes to the mode of nutrition and how it is obtained by humans; changes in shelter and it's internal climate control; changes in transportation; and ultimately changes in the world's government(s). The list of changes would likely be endless, yet you seem to think that the method to meet the needs of the human races would be static.

It would seem likely that the lack of direct involvement in the production of consumables and durables would render the human unnecessary.

Today there are over 7 billion humans on the earth, just 100 years ago there were less than 1.7 billion. UN projections predict that, unchecked, the total by 2030 will be as many as 9 billion and by 2100 upwards of 16 billion.

With the best robotics imaginable, it is hard to conceive of a system that will provide for them all. Water and air pollution will multiply with that population, there are so many variables that will impact the habitability of the planet, it almost seems to be a moot point in how wealth will be distributed.

But, the likely scenario will be a huge number of us in absolute poverty, lacking the means to meet their needs. And there will be the 5% who control the wealth who will live isolated and high security habitats.

Or we will endure a global war, which will reduce the population by several billion, reduce the capacity for the losers to produce for their own needs and opening a new opportunity for the 5% to profit from it.

Or we will decide to become totally socialistic and the government will provide for our needs using it's depleted assets until there are none left. Then the 5% will live in isolated, secure habitats.

 

So people are finally coming to realise that mankind's 10,000-year slavery since the invention of agriculture, might actually be coming to an end.


Why are they upset about it?