What is to be done about the inefficiencies of post-industrial late capitalism?
> "Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more [irrational] be imagined?" — Bertrand Russell, "In Praise of Idleness," 1935
Ian Green
> It's a general problem with capitalism tbh
Michael James
> Dat efficiency
Anthony Lee
> B-turd fashies won't get it
Thomas Carter
> kek
Jace Nelson
> Sniff
David Bennett
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Hunter Watson
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Jonathan Torres
I simply can't see how we're not fucked by automation. If a small handful of people can produce enough to feed an entire country with what they own - factories and robots and mines and everything - why should they just let other people have the shit they produce? Human beings haven't exactly proven overly altruistic on a national scale.
How do we force the owners of everything to let us have a cut? What incentive do we use? If you say pitch forks and torches, who's to say they don't just bunker up somewhere in the lap of luxury and let their servitors gun us all down? The only alternative is respect or whatever, but if they haven't got tangible power over us, it's not going to work. And if they do have tangible power, we're basically just slaves.
I can't get past this roadblock.
Michael Taylor
Forgot to mention: and if you say we should just nationalize their shit, then how do we not stifle technological progress? If everything you make can be taken away from you for the good of everyone, why should you put effort into it, when you don't really gain anything other than recognition? Do you think recognition will be enough, when the standard of living won't increase in the same way it does today if you invent something incredible?
