Labor is Prior to and Independent of Capital

[SniperFire]

If your job skills are so poor you can replaced by a machine then you have problems anyway.

You do realize that these days, except for court appearances, lawyers can be replaced by machines, right? Do lawyers have poor job skills?

As the number of people who can be replaced by machines increases, as jobs become scarcer and scarcer, the entire economy will have problems. So will those who continue to advocate a laissez-faire approach, in the teeth of rising public anger.

Lampposts and ropes, folks. Lampposts and ropes.

You make this mistake consistently. Machines do not reduce employment. They lower costs and make product substantially cheaper, which usually makes for hugely increased employment.

.

Plusly, the standard of living explodes and the human condition enjoys dramatic advance.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

You make this mistake consistently. Machines do not reduce employment. They lower costs and make product substantially cheaper, which usually makes for hugely increased employment.

It's not a mistake, and what you say here is only true if there is some other area of production to make use of the labor no longer needed in the area automated. There are three and only three sectors of the economy: agriculture, manufacturing, and services. The first to be automated was agriculture. That did not result in lasting unemployment because manufacturing needed labor and could take up the slack. But there remains very low employment in the agricultural sector. That sector itself did not expand to replace the lost jobs. Similarly, when manufacturing automated, services expanded and employed people. Now that advances in computer technology make it possible to automate services, too, there is no fourth sector that can expand to compensate.

This is new. The past is no lesson. This is the point when the jobs disappear and do not return.

You can still subsistance farm at the level of 1640. Large numbers of Amish still do that.

It is possible, but it sucks.

instad of having thousands of field hands working at starvation wages (or what was more common then, working for none at all but in the position of slaves) or you can have one combine. And the field hands now work in combine factories.

What matters is how we can further divide and ease labor to increase the productivity of each worker.

the goal here is not to provide jobs, the goal here is to make things right for the customer. From the days the first Austraulipiticine made the first sharp tool till the present human development has meant improving the tools that we have to make our lives better.

 

[Dragon]

How about it Dragoon? What do you mean? Are YOU inciting violence?

Just predicting it, not advocating it.

And you've said it a few times in these forums...why is it I doubt you?

Paranoia?

 

[Dragon]

instad of having thousands of field hands working at starvation wages (or what was more common then, working for none at all but in the position of slaves) or you can have one combine. And the field hands now work in combine factories.

A more specific way of saying that as the labor needs of agriculture declined, those of manufacturing rose to replace the lost jobs. I already said that. And when manufacturing was automated, people moved into services. But as services are automated, too, there is no fourth sector of the economy to take up the slack. This is permanent.

the goal here is not to provide jobs, the goal here is to make things right for the customer.

If we do not either provide jobs, or provide some other way of spreading the wealth around, there won't BE any customers, and we will starve in the midst of plenty.

As automation severs productivity from labor, the logical conclusion is that we need to do the same in our thinking. Wages for work have in the past served two purposes that obeyed contradictory logic. On the one hand, they have motivated people to do the work that produced wealth. On the other hand, they have distributed the wealth produced. For the first purpose, it was desirable to keep wages low, but for the second, it was desirable to keep them high.

Perhaps what we need to do now is to disconnect working from income in our minds. If we no longer need much in the way of labor to produce wealth, then there is no reason to make people work in order to give them a share.

 

[Dragon]

Plusly, the standard of living explodes and the human condition enjoys dramatic advance.

That's POTENTIALLY true, but it's not AUTOMATICALLY true. The job of an economy -- any economy -- is to produce goods and services and distribute them to the people. All of the complex arrangements in an economy are successful to the extent they accomplish those two simple purposes.

Capitalism does a good job of the first task, production, but tends to fall short on the second, distribution, which is just as crucial. A failure of distribution means a failure of production, too. The way that a capitalist economy has always distributed wealth is through wages paid for work. If work is no longer needed to produce wealth, though, that method will fail. Something else must take its place. Otherwise, there will be no consumers able to buy -- a failure of the distribution side -- and the entire system will crash.

 

[code1211]

Unless, of course, the same process has left you unemployed and unable to afford anything even at the reduced prices.

If your job skills are so poor you can replaced by a machine then you have problems anyway.

You do realize that these days, except for court appearances, lawyers can be replaced by machines, right? Do lawyers have poor job skills?

As the number of people who can be replaced by machines increases, as jobs become scarcer and scarcer, the entire economy will have problems. So will those who continue to advocate a laissez-faire approach, in the teeth of rising public anger.

Lampposts and ropes, folks. Lampposts and ropes.

Are you recommending that all progress stop where it is and we have no more advancement from where we are no matter how much potential the future might hold?

Would you prefer that we actually abandon our current position and move backward?

How much of today's economy must we dismantle in order to have a good economy?

 

[JoeB131]

How does labor get hired if there's no capital?

how is capital created if there is no labor? What does capital measure?

I mean, the govenrment could print out a shitload of money, but it has to represent something....

 

[code1211]

You make this mistake consistently. Machines do not reduce employment. They lower costs and make product substantially cheaper, which usually makes for hugely increased employment.

It's not a mistake, and what you say here is only true if there is some other area of production to make use of the labor no longer needed in the area automated. There are three and only three sectors of the economy: agriculture, manufacturing, and services. The first to be automated was agriculture. That did not result in lasting unemployment because manufacturing needed labor and could take up the slack. But there remains very low employment in the agricultural sector. That sector itself did not expand to replace the lost jobs. Similarly, when manufacturing automated, services expanded and employed people. Now that advances in computer technology make it possible to automate services, too, there is no fourth sector that can expand to compensate.

This is new. The past is no lesson. This is the point when the jobs disappear and do not return.

There are hundreds of companies that do not fall into your obsolete understanding of the world. Transportation is one. Communication is another. There were about a billion people in the world in 1800. Maybe less. now there are about 7 billion and they are working. More than ever before.

The facts around you should reveal that you need to revise your understanding of the world.

 

[code1211]

instad of having thousands of field hands working at starvation wages (or what was more common then, working for none at all but in the position of slaves) or you can have one combine. And the field hands now work in combine factories.

A more specific way of saying that as the labor needs of agriculture declined, those of manufacturing rose to replace the lost jobs. I already said that. And when manufacturing was automated, people moved into services. But as services are automated, too, there is no fourth sector of the economy to take up the slack. This is permanent.

the goal here is not to provide jobs, the goal here is to make things right for the customer.

If we do not either provide jobs, or provide some other way of spreading the wealth around, there won't BE any customers, and we will starve in the midst of plenty.

As automation severs productivity from labor, the logical conclusion is that we need to do the same in our thinking. Wages for work have in the past served two purposes that obeyed contradictory logic. On the one hand, they have motivated people to do the work that produced wealth. On the other hand, they have distributed the wealth produced. For the first purpose, it was desirable to keep wages low, but for the second, it was desirable to keep them high.

Perhaps what we need to do now is to disconnect working from income in our minds. If we no longer need much in the way of labor to produce wealth, then there is no reason to make people work in order to give them a share.

This is the definition of Communism. The list of successful Communist economies goes on without beginning.

 

[code1211]

Plusly, the standard of living explodes and the human condition enjoys dramatic advance.

That's POTENTIALLY true, but it's not AUTOMATICALLY true. The job of an economy -- any economy -- is to produce goods and services and distribute them to the people. All of the complex arrangements in an economy are successful to the extent they accomplish those two simple purposes.

Capitalism does a good job of the first task, production, but tends to fall short on the second, distribution, which is just as crucial. A failure of distribution means a failure of production, too. The way that a capitalist economy has always distributed wealth is through wages paid for work. If work is no longer needed to produce wealth, though, that method will fail. Something else must take its place. Otherwise, there will be no consumers able to buy -- a failure of the distribution side -- and the entire system will crash.

The something that you're missing is consumerism. This is what ties capitalism to distribution and has created the great economies of the West.

Want to see a failure of distribution? Look under Communism.

 

[JoeB131]

Plusly, the standard of living explodes and the human condition enjoys dramatic advance.

That's POTENTIALLY true, but it's not AUTOMATICALLY true. The job of an economy -- any economy -- is to produce goods and services and distribute them to the people. All of the complex arrangements in an economy are successful to the extent they accomplish those two simple purposes.

Capitalism does a good job of the first task, production, but tends to fall short on the second, distribution, which is just as crucial. A failure of distribution means a failure of production, too. The way that a capitalist economy has always distributed wealth is through wages paid for work. If work is no longer needed to produce wealth, though, that method will fail. Something else must take its place. Otherwise, there will be no consumers able to buy -- a failure of the distribution side -- and the entire system will crash.

The something that you're missing is consumerism. This is what ties capitalism to distribution and has created the great economies of the West.

Want to see a failure of distribution? Look under Communism.

Hard to say. A "Communist" country called China is kicking our asses right now.

 

[Liability]

That's POTENTIALLY true, but it's not AUTOMATICALLY true. The job of an economy -- any economy -- is to produce goods and services and distribute them to the people. All of the complex arrangements in an economy are successful to the extent they accomplish those two simple purposes.

Capitalism does a good job of the first task, production, but tends to fall short on the second, distribution, which is just as crucial. A failure of distribution means a failure of production, too. The way that a capitalist economy has always distributed wealth is through wages paid for work. If work is no longer needed to produce wealth, though, that method will fail. Something else must take its place. Otherwise, there will be no consumers able to buy -- a failure of the distribution side -- and the entire system will crash.

The something that you're missing is consumerism. This is what ties capitalism to distribution and has created the great economies of the West.

Want to see a failure of distribution? Look under Communism.

Hard to say. A "Communist" country called China is kicking our asses right now.

I think it is extraordinarily funny to see libs clinging to the notion that Communist China is still actually communist.

 

[code1211]

That's POTENTIALLY true, but it's not AUTOMATICALLY true. The job of an economy -- any economy -- is to produce goods and services and distribute them to the people. All of the complex arrangements in an economy are successful to the extent they accomplish those two simple purposes.

Capitalism does a good job of the first task, production, but tends to fall short on the second, distribution, which is just as crucial. A failure of distribution means a failure of production, too. The way that a capitalist economy has always distributed wealth is through wages paid for work. If work is no longer needed to produce wealth, though, that method will fail. Something else must take its place. Otherwise, there will be no consumers able to buy -- a failure of the distribution side -- and the entire system will crash.

The something that you're missing is consumerism. This is what ties capitalism to distribution and has created the great economies of the West.

Want to see a failure of distribution? Look under Communism.

Hard to say. A "Communist" country called China is kicking our asses right now.

Using Capitalism and Consumerism as its tools.

This is the same basic method of the Socialist models of Northern Europe that finance their socialism using Capitalism and Consumerism.

As the Saabs and Volvos of the world join the industries of greece at the bottom of the value scale, the Socialism there will suffer.

 

[bripat9643]

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families--wives, sons, and daughters--work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

Read more: State of the Union Address: Abraham Lincoln (December 3, 1861) — Infoplease.com State of the Union Address: Abraham Lincoln (December 3, 1861) — Infoplease.com

Lincoln was just as capable of spouting bullshit as any other politician. In fact, the Gettysburg Address is the biggest pile of bullshit ever written.

 

[code1211]

The something that you're missing is consumerism. This is what ties capitalism to distribution and has created the great economies of the West.

Want to see a failure of distribution? Look under Communism.

Hard to say. A "Communist" country called China is kicking our asses right now.

I think it is extraordinarily funny to see libs clinging to the notion that Communist China is still actually communist.

A label is a label.

 

[bripat9643]

So honest Abe was a liberal after all?

The ideas he expressed were straight from Karl Marx.

 

[bripat9643]

How does labor get hired if there's no capital?

Yeah. How is the labor of driving a truck prior to the existence of the truck?

 

[Liability]

Hard to say. A "Communist" country called China is kicking our asses right now.

I think it is extraordinarily funny to see libs clinging to the notion that Communist China is still actually communist.

A label is a label.

I put a Rolls Royce "label" on a Yugo, the car is still a piece of shit.

 

[JoeB131]

The something that you're missing is consumerism. This is what ties capitalism to distribution and has created the great economies of the West.

Want to see a failure of distribution? Look under Communism.

Hard to say. A "Communist" country called China is kicking our asses right now.

I think it is extraordinarily funny to see libs clinging to the notion that Communist China is still actually communist.

Well,I think it has to do with the fact that the ruling party is called the "Communist" party and it calls itself the "People's Republic" and most of the industries are state owned, not privately owned.

What China has done is barter labor for capital... and it was the stupidest thing we've ever done...

 

[Dragon]

How does labor get hired if there's no capital?

Yeah. How is the labor of driving a truck prior to the existence of the truck?

How is the existence of the truck prior to the labor of MAKING the truck?

Capital is stored labor.