Dragon
Senior Member
- Sep 16, 2011
- 5,481
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A simple thought, set out in numbered points.
1) An industrial economy requires broadly dispersed wealth in order to generate the consumer demand necessary for prosperity. Without that, inventory cannot be sold, and the economy breaks down.
2) The main method used in a capitalist economy to distribute wealth is wages paid for work. Although some wealth is dispersed by other methods, wages for work is the way that the vast majority of wealth distribution takes place.
3) As long as production requires full employment, and as long as wages are kept high through such means as labor unions and worker protection laws, distribution of wealth in a capitalist economy works reasonably well.
4) However, over time a capitalist economy shows a trend of replacing labor with automation. We have seen this happen in both the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. As agriculture was mechanized, displaced farm workers moved into the factories. As manufacturing has been mechanized (and outsourced), displaced factory workers have moved into the service industries.
5) With advanced computer and artificial-information technologies, it becomes increasingly possible to automate service industries, too. Already many sales clerks, grocery clerks, legal assistants, typists, bank tellers, and customer-service telephone agents have been replaced by computerized, automated services.
6) If all three sectors of the economy, farming, manufacturing, and services, become highly automated, we will see a permanent reduction in the number of paid jobs. Those three sectors are all of the economy there is. While there will certainly be some jobs that cannot be automated or aren't worth automating, the number of remaining jobs will be drastically reduced.
7) See point number 3. A capitalist economy's way of distributing wealth, wages for work, depends on full employment. If we no longer have full employment due to automation, a capitalist economy will break down in a permanent depression.
8) The only way to restore prosperity under those circumstances when labor has become far less necessary to create wealth, and so no longer serves to distribute wealth, is to render today's privately-owned publicly-traded corporations into publicly-owned operations, and distribute the profits to the people as an owner's share.
Thus: socialism is inevitable.
1) An industrial economy requires broadly dispersed wealth in order to generate the consumer demand necessary for prosperity. Without that, inventory cannot be sold, and the economy breaks down.
2) The main method used in a capitalist economy to distribute wealth is wages paid for work. Although some wealth is dispersed by other methods, wages for work is the way that the vast majority of wealth distribution takes place.
3) As long as production requires full employment, and as long as wages are kept high through such means as labor unions and worker protection laws, distribution of wealth in a capitalist economy works reasonably well.
4) However, over time a capitalist economy shows a trend of replacing labor with automation. We have seen this happen in both the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. As agriculture was mechanized, displaced farm workers moved into the factories. As manufacturing has been mechanized (and outsourced), displaced factory workers have moved into the service industries.
5) With advanced computer and artificial-information technologies, it becomes increasingly possible to automate service industries, too. Already many sales clerks, grocery clerks, legal assistants, typists, bank tellers, and customer-service telephone agents have been replaced by computerized, automated services.
6) If all three sectors of the economy, farming, manufacturing, and services, become highly automated, we will see a permanent reduction in the number of paid jobs. Those three sectors are all of the economy there is. While there will certainly be some jobs that cannot be automated or aren't worth automating, the number of remaining jobs will be drastically reduced.
7) See point number 3. A capitalist economy's way of distributing wealth, wages for work, depends on full employment. If we no longer have full employment due to automation, a capitalist economy will break down in a permanent depression.
8) The only way to restore prosperity under those circumstances when labor has become far less necessary to create wealth, and so no longer serves to distribute wealth, is to render today's privately-owned publicly-traded corporations into publicly-owned operations, and distribute the profits to the people as an owner's share.
Thus: socialism is inevitable.