Obama blames the rise of the machines for high unemployment.

[Urkie]

well now that you've cleared it up for all of us dummies we can rest easy.

I'm not trying to act like you're dumb. I just think this is what Obama was trying to say but he was trying to dumb it down.

 

[Samson]

well now that you've cleared it up for all of us dummies we can rest easy.

I'm not trying to act like you're dumb. I just think this is what Obama was trying to say but he was trying to dumb it down.

That was really helpful.

Thanks.

 

[Urkie]

That was really helpful.

Thanks.

I just find it pretty damn funny that this is something you can jump all over Obama for quite honestly.

 

[editec]

Do you see your logical flaw? Because the plow and horse made the job easier less workers were needed to do the same job. It had the same effect as your modern day example. Less are needed to do the same job. That frees up resources to grow and expand the economy everywhere else. The argument against technology is the argument that efficiency hurts economic growth. That defies all common sense and historical reality.

during the horse and plow days the farmer and his wife and kids did all the work on their farms themselves......as the Tractor came into being it made his job easier and now he was able to do more land ........and more crops growing on more land he may have had to hire more people.....etc etc.....in some Industries....Automation has cut down the number of workers that used to work there.....is all im pointing out.....which is what this thread has evolved into......"do machines replace people or not?".....im all for Technology....im not against it......

And if the farmer buys more land because of the tractor and uses the same amount of work, he is not creating more jobs if he bought that land and hired workers to use a plow. Maybe that land was used by another farmer, but the tractor made the other farmer less efficient so he went out of business and lost his job. Technological advances in production always function to reduce the amount of people it takes to do a job. But my argument is that because of the resources it frees up, there will be more jobs everywhere else, so on net balance employment will not decrease and people may simply get jobs somewhere else. Do you agree with that?

No, the emboldened sentence is where you're missing the point.

That is NOT what is happening.

Back when the USA was migrating from an agricultural nation to an industrialized nation, the folks coming off the farms could find work in the expanding industrial base.

Additionally, they were qualified to assume those positions because factory work was something most people could do.

But the advances in technology now are NOT creating opportunities for as many workers as those advances are displacing.

And WORSE, the advances in technology are moving UP THE EMPLOYMENTS SKILLS FOODCHAIN, TOO.

We are systenmatically making an increasingly larger percentage of our population (and this IS happening worldwide, too) ECONOMICALLY unviable.

IN the 19th century it was farm laboring jobs that machines and technology eliminated.

In the later half of the 20th century it was industrial and clerical jobs that advances in technology started replacing.

In the beginning of THIS CENTURY we're seeing advancing technology replacing formerly highly skilled workers.

And the number of jobs that are created to service this techological society is a pittance compared to the numbers of jobs that the technology is replacing.

In the last 15 year techology has replaced 6 workers in my tiny tiny operation. While I am able to increase my output my laboring force went down 75%

Multiply my experience by thousands and thousands of small and medium and large businesses, and you discover that we are created an ENTRENCHED SYSTEMIC class of people who are virtually UNEMPLOYABLE.


Now how does that effect every one of us, regardless of how secure we might be in our current billets?


The under and unemployable do NOT pay taxes, they do NOT purchases goods and they do become a drag on society precisely because, while willing to work, there is no job that will pay them enough to BE good citizens and consumers in this CONSUMER DRIVEN economy.

We are creating a SYSTEMIC problem in this society and aren't even talking about it realistically

Every time this issue comes up, people dismiss it by proposing that people just need more education.

But as I have already point out, even EDUCATED people are being effected by this problem, because techological advances in THINKING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS are making even well educated people REDUNDANT.

It's time to START thinking about how we deal with a problem that is now manifesting and threatening not just the stupid and skilless, but the well educated and highly skilled workers, too.

This problem will not go away because techological advances are taking jobs from people such that there is no educational path that any worker can take that will INSURE that they won't be reducatant TOMORROW.

Many software programmers are just now beginning to feel that pinch.

I can assure you that sooner or later most people who depend on working (be it with their hands or with their heads) for their rice bowls are going to become redundant.

The ONLY socultion to this is a radical RETHINK of the social contract.

Market forces do NOT have a solution for this problem, folks.

Why not?

Because our economic system is based on a theory of SCARCITY AND WANT.

But techology is creating a system of PLENTY produced by less and less workers.

Unhappily, one needs to be linked into that economy system with economically viable employment to garner the income to take advantage of it.

But as the PROFITS go only to the CAPITALISTS, the working classes grow poorer and poorer until the economy we have in place no longer SERVES the people in it.

Right now I'd say about 20% of the population of all workers are basically REPLACEABLE by machines.

In ten years? Add some more percent of the workforces to that problem

In twenty years, most of you who are feeling so sanguine because you currently have marketable skills?

You're hosed, too.

And believe me when I tell you that very few of your will have the resources or even the mental acuity to retrain for a job that you can do better or more cheaply than a thinking machine.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1CUwDtkM8M&feature=youtube_gdata_player]YouTube - ‪HAL 9000 Vs Sgt. Hartman‬‏[/ame]

 

[Quantum Windbag]

well now that you've cleared it up for all of us dummies we can rest easy.

I'm not trying to act like you're dumb. I just think this is what Obama was trying to say but he was trying to dumb it down.

He thinks people are too stupid to understand the economy, so he says dumb things to people? Why are you supporting someone who treats you like that?

 

[Urkie]

He thinks people are too stupid to understand the economy, so he says dumb things to people? Why are you supporting someone who treats you like that?

He was on the Today Show when he said that. A show watched by millions of people. Of course he's going to dumb it down a little bit so that the entire audience can understand what he's saying. He's not the only one that does that.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Only his Teleprompter Machine is to blame...For telling him to say such stupid chit.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

during the horse and plow days the farmer and his wife and kids did all the work on their farms themselves......as the Tractor came into being it made his job easier and now he was able to do more land ........and more crops growing on more land he may have had to hire more people.....etc etc.....in some Industries....Automation has cut down the number of workers that used to work there.....is all im pointing out.....which is what this thread has evolved into......"do machines replace people or not?".....im all for Technology....im not against it......

And if the farmer buys more land because of the tractor and uses the same amount of work, he is not creating more jobs if he bought that land and hired workers to use a plow. Maybe that land was used by another farmer, but the tractor made the other farmer less efficient so he went out of business and lost his job. Technological advances in production always function to reduce the amount of people it takes to do a job. But my argument is that because of the resources it frees up, there will be more jobs everywhere else, so on net balance employment will not decrease and people may simply get jobs somewhere else. Do you agree with that?

No, the emboldened sentence is where you're missing the point.

That is NOT what is happening.

Back when the USA was migrating from an agricultural nation to an industrialized nation, the folks coming off the farms could find work in the expanding industrial base.

Additionally, they were qualified to assume those positions because factory work was something most people could do.

But the advances in technology now are NOT creating opportunities for as many workers as those advances are displacing.

And WORSE, the advances in technology are moving UP THE EMPLOYMENTS SKILLS FOODCHAIN, TOO.

We are systenmatically making an increasingly larger percentage of our population (and this IS happening worldwide, too) ECONOMICALLY unviable.

IN the 19th century it was farm laboring jobs that machines and technology eliminated.

In the later half of the 20th century it was industrial and clerical jobs that advances in technology started replacing.

In the beginning of THIS CENTURY we're seeing advancing technology replacing formerly highly skilled workers.

And the number of jobs that are created to service this techological society is a pittance compared to the numbers of jobs that the technology is replacing.

In the last 15 year techology has replaced 6 workers in my tiny tiny operation. While I am able to increase my output my laboring force went down 75%

Multiply my experience by thousands and thousands of small and medium and large businesses, and you discover that we are created an ENTRENCHED SYSTEMIC class of people who are virtually UNEMPLOYABLE.


Now how does that effect every one of us, regardless of how secure we might be in our current billets?


The under and unemployable do NOT pay taxes, they do NOT purchases goods and they do become a drag on society precisely because, while willing to work, there is no job that will pay them enough to BE good citizens and consumers in this CONSUMER DRIVEN economy.

We are creating a SYSTEMIC problem in this society and aren't even talking about it realistically

Every time this issue comes up, people dismiss it by proposing that people just need more education.

But as I have already point out, even EDUCATED people are being effected by this problem, because techological advances in THINKING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS are making even well educated people REDUNDANT.

It's time to START thinking about how we deal with a problem that is now manifesting and threatening not just the stupid and skilless, but the well educated and highly skilled workers, too.

This problem will not go away because techological advances are taking jobs from people such that there is no educational path that any worker can take that will INSURE that they won't be reducatant TOMORROW.

Many software programmers are just now beginning to feel that pinch.

I can assure you that sooner or later most people who depend on working (be it with their hands or with their heads) for their rice bowls are going to become redundant.

The ONLY socultion to this is a radical RETHINK of the social contract.

Market forces do NOT have a solution for this problem, folks.

Why not?

Because our economic system is based on a theory of SCARCITY AND WANT.

But techology is creating a system of PLENTY produced by less and less workers.

Unhappily, one needs to be linked into that economy system with economically viable employment to garner the income to take advantage of it.

But as the PROFITS go only to the CAPITALISTS, the working classes grow poorer and poorer until the economy we have in place no longer SERVES the people in it.

Right now I'd say about 20% of the population of all workers are basically REPLACEABLE by machines.

In ten years? Add some more percent of the workforces to that problem

In twenty years, most of you who are feeling so sanguine because you currently have marketable skills?

You're hosed, too.

And believe me when I tell you that very few of your will have the resources or even the mental acuity to retrain for a job that you can do better or more cheaply than a thinking machine.

If they ever build a thinking machine in my lifetime I will start worrying.

If you are right that there are simply not enough new jobs to go around we will see signs of that at some point. Presently no one, except for a few nutcases, is saying that. Everyone is saying that the current unemployment numbers are just a blip and that the economy will eventually recover.

 

[The T]

well now that you've cleared it up for all of us dummies we can rest easy.

I'm not trying to act like you're dumb. I just think this is what Obama was trying to say but he was trying to dumb it down.

He thinks people are too stupid to understand the economy, so he says dumb things to people? Why are you supporting someone who treats you like that?

Minor correction here? *Dumb things to dumbed-down people that could care less anyway except what the taxpayers can do for them anyway and buy into the Obama diatribe*

 

[LibocalypseNow]

If Palin had said this,the CNN & MSNBC stooges would have obsessed over it for years. Our MSM is so Liberal/Democrat Biased. When Democrats say stupid things,they pretend it didn't happen. But God forbid a Republican say something they don't like. And the only Machine i blame for high unemployment is the Hopey Changey One's Teleprompter Machine. It continues to make him stay such stupid shit.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Palin is going to destroy Obama with that during the debates.

He has a record of total failure and he blames ATM's for it.

"You know Barry, we had ATM's in Alaska when I was governor. The high unemployment seems to come from your failed policies."

 

[KissMy]

Back when the USA was migrating from an agricultural nation to an industrialized nation, the folks coming off the farms could find work in the expanding industrial base.

Additionally, they were qualified to assume those positions because factory work was something most people could do. But the advances in technology now are NOT creating opportunities for as many workers as those advances are displacing. And WORSE, the advances in technology are moving UP THE EMPLOYMENTS SKILLS FOODCHAIN, TOO. We are systenmatically making an increasingly larger percentage of our population (and this IS happening worldwide, too) ECONOMICALLY unviable.

IN the 19th century it was farm laboring jobs that machines and technology eliminated. In the later half of the 20th century it was industrial and clerical jobs that advances in technology started replacing. In the beginning of THIS CENTURY we're seeing advancing technology replacing formerly highly skilled workers. And the number of jobs that are created to service this techological society is a pittance compared to the numbers of jobs that the technology is replacing.

In the last 15 year techology has replaced 6 workers in my tiny tiny operation. While I am able to increase my output my laboring force went down 75% Multiply my experience by thousands and thousands of small and medium and large businesses, and you discover that we are created an ENTRENCHED SYSTEMIC class of people who are virtually UNEMPLOYABLE.

Now how does that effect every one of us, regardless of how secure we might be in our current billets? The under and unemployable do NOT pay taxes, they do NOT purchases goods and they do become a drag on society precisely because, while willing to work, there is no job that will pay them enough to BE good citizens and consumers in this CONSUMER DRIVEN economy.

We are creating a SYSTEMIC problem in this society and aren't even talking about it realistically Every time this issue comes up, people dismiss it by proposing that people just need more education. But as I have already point out, even EDUCATED people are being effected by this problem, because techological advances in THINKING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS are making even well educated people REDUNDANT.

It's time to START thinking about how we deal with a problem that is now manifesting and threatening not just the stupid and skilless, but the well educated and highly skilled workers, too. This problem will not go away because techological advances are taking jobs from people such that there is no educational path that any worker can take that will INSURE that they won't be reducatant TOMORROW. Many software programmers are just now beginning to feel that pinch. I can assure you that sooner or later most people who depend on working (be it with their hands or with their heads) for their rice bowls are going to become redundant.

The ONLY socultion to this is a radical RETHINK of the social contract. Market forces do NOT have a solution for this problem, folks.

Why not? Because our economic system is based on a theory of SCARCITY AND WANT. But techology is creating a system of PLENTY produced by less and less workers. Unhappily, one needs to be linked into that economy system with economically viable employment to garner the income to take advantage of it.

But as the PROFITS go only to the CAPITALISTS, the working classes grow poorer and poorer until the economy we have in place no longer SERVES the people in it. Right now I'd say about 20% of the population of all workers are basically REPLACEABLE by machines.

In ten years? Add some more percent of the workforces to that problem. In twenty years, most of you who are feeling so sanguine because you currently have marketable skills? You're hosed, too. And believe me when I tell you that very few of your will have the resources or even the mental acuity to retrain for a job that you can do better or more cheaply than a thinking machine.

(I condenced your rant)

You are to far in the future. That is clearly not what happened in the situation our country finds itself in now. Over the past dozen years to much undo leverage & credit was given to to many for homes & things of little value. This drove mal investment & our work force into rising assets & away from manufacturing, innovation, science & technology. That stuff all went overseas to low regulated manufacturing friendly placed with idle workers.

We invested in nesting instead of manufacturing & technology. Most of the stuff we buy is still made by people or people assisted automation. The machines are not the ones that took most of the jobs yet, but it may be coming over the next 20 years.

You may be dreaming of the future when machines take care of our needs. When our main responsibility is maintaining social contracts, good mental & physical health. Where councilors, psychiatrist & doctors make-up the critical part of the workforce. Where our main function is being a good citizen, helping others, dreaming up new innovations, advancements, intergalactic travel, planetary colonization & resource mining.

The problem is we have to many large gaps in our technology to achieve a lot of this. Innovation has not kept up with population growth. Once everyone in the world can have anything they desire by commanding a machine to make it, the #1 problem will be raw materials & resources. Resource wars will be the issue instead of social contracts.

 

[Samson]

That was really helpful.

Thanks.

I just find it pretty damn funny that this is something you can jump all over Obama for quite honestly.

Honestly, I don't think you'll hear Obama utter one unscripted word until after the election.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Who needs Obama unscripted when we got Biden the blundering idiot. Even with a script he screws chit up.

 

[thereisnospoon]

More rightwing misdirection

Obama is not advocating elimination of ATMs or airport kiosks. he only points to them as an example of where technology advancements have eliminated jobs previously done by people.

And I ask again, so what?

So what? are ******* blind or stupid? You tell me... because I am at a loss.

No one is saying that technology and robotics are a bad thing.... just that, if you are going to have such labor saving devices.... then one has a RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that REAL PEOPLE are still being taken care of financially.

Like I proposed before.. what if most industries become "lights out" facilities that require little to no human intervention? **** those former "productive people"... right?

In short... Conservatives are setting themselves up in their own demise... they are just to damned stubborn to realize it. When it happens(and it will) there won't be much of anything in the way of jobs.... It will go back to the days of "Company stores, Company towns, and Company lifestyles".

Tennessee Ernie Ford said it best in his song... "16 Tons", which was referring to the Coal Mining Trade at the time.

"You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another Day Older and deeper in debt... St. Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go... I owe my soul to the Company Store".

This is what you are gradually advocating. it will take time to undo the work that Collective Bargaining has done over the decades... but make no mistake.... that is the goal of the Conglomerate. To maximize their profits and minimize the value of labor.

Taken care of?...By whom?
The only responsibility here is for each of us to take care of our selves.
Each of us as individuals have the responsibility to improve our skill sets and make our selves marketable in the job force.
Looks like on Planet Steeplate, companies should be prepared to "make work" for anyone who may be displaced by technology.
What you suggest is lunacy.
One of the main reasons why US industry is lagging behind the rest of the worlds dominant industrial nations is US industries failed to modernize plants. These companies became non competitive in the global marketplace.
And of course we get to the root of your whiny
ant.....Collective bargaining. Look genius, part of the reason why US based industry lags behind is having to cow tow to the unions. Unions made American labor so expensive and so lacking in productivity as compared to the developing industrial nations, companies had no choice but to boot the unions out and modernize facilities.
Do you really think business owners wanted to spend billions collectively to construct new plants in other countries while having to write off huge losses? It takes years to recoup those investments.

 

[oreo]

well now that you've cleared it up for all of us dummies we can rest easy.

I'm not trying to act like you're dumb. I just think this is what Obama was trying to say but he was trying to dumb it down.

He thinks people are too stupid to understand the economy, so he says dumb things to people? Why are you supporting someone who treats you like that?

The democrat party believes Americans to be ignorant--as it takes ignorance to vote for them.

It appears that our Harvard graduate--community organizer--most intellectual President-EVER-has just discovered something- that-we (the common peasants) have known for decades.

 

[Samson]

Who needs Obama unscripted when we got Biden the blundering idiot. Even with a script he screws chit up.

Will Biden be running for president?

***Who the **** left the gate to the idiot farm open?***

 

[ShackledNation]

during the horse and plow days the farmer and his wife and kids did all the work on their farms themselves......as the Tractor came into being it made his job easier and now he was able to do more land ........and more crops growing on more land he may have had to hire more people.....etc etc.....in some Industries....Automation has cut down the number of workers that used to work there.....is all im pointing out.....which is what this thread has evolved into......"do machines replace people or not?".....im all for Technology....im not against it......

And if the farmer buys more land because of the tractor and uses the same amount of work, he is not creating more jobs if he bought that land and hired workers to use a plow. Maybe that land was used by another farmer, but the tractor made the other farmer less efficient so he went out of business and lost his job. Technological advances in production always function to reduce the amount of people it takes to do a job. But my argument is that because of the resources it frees up, there will be more jobs everywhere else, so on net balance employment will not decrease and people may simply get jobs somewhere else. Do you agree with that?

No, the emboldened sentence is where you're missing the point.

That is NOT what is happening.

Back when the USA was migrating from an agricultural nation to an industrialized nation, the folks coming off the farms could find work in the expanding industrial base.

Additionally, they were qualified to assume those positions because factory work was something most people could do.

But the advances in technology now are NOT creating opportunities for as many workers as those advances are displacing.

And WORSE, the advances in technology are moving UP THE EMPLOYMENTS SKILLS FOODCHAIN, TOO.

We are systenmatically making an increasingly larger percentage of our population (and this IS happening worldwide, too) ECONOMICALLY unviable.

IN the 19th century it was farm laboring jobs that machines and technology eliminated.

In the later half of the 20th century it was industrial and clerical jobs that advances in technology started replacing.

In the beginning of THIS CENTURY we're seeing advancing technology replacing formerly highly skilled workers.

And the number of jobs that are created to service this techological society is a pittance compared to the numbers of jobs that the technology is replacing.

In the last 15 year techology has replaced 6 workers in my tiny tiny operation. While I am able to increase my output my laboring force went down 75%

Multiply my experience by thousands and thousands of small and medium and large businesses, and you discover that we are created an ENTRENCHED SYSTEMIC class of people who are virtually UNEMPLOYABLE.


Now how does that effect every one of us, regardless of how secure we might be in our current billets?


The under and unemployable do NOT pay taxes, they do NOT purchases goods and they do become a drag on society precisely because, while willing to work, there is no job that will pay them enough to BE good citizens and consumers in this CONSUMER DRIVEN economy.

We are creating a SYSTEMIC problem in this society and aren't even talking about it realistically

Every time this issue comes up, people dismiss it by proposing that people just need more education.

But as I have already point out, even EDUCATED people are being effected by this problem, because techological advances in THINKING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS are making even well educated people REDUNDANT.

It's time to START thinking about how we deal with a problem that is now manifesting and threatening not just the stupid and skilless, but the well educated and highly skilled workers, too.

This problem will not go away because techological advances are taking jobs from people such that there is no educational path that any worker can take that will INSURE that they won't be reducatant TOMORROW.

Many software programmers are just now beginning to feel that pinch.

I can assure you that sooner or later most people who depend on working (be it with their hands or with their heads) for their rice bowls are going to become redundant.

The ONLY socultion to this is a radical RETHINK of the social contract.

Market forces do NOT have a solution for this problem, folks.

Why not?

Because our economic system is based on a theory of SCARCITY AND WANT.

But techology is creating a system of PLENTY produced by less and less workers.

Unhappily, one needs to be linked into that economy system with economically viable employment to garner the income to take advantage of it.

But as the PROFITS go only to the CAPITALISTS, the working classes grow poorer and poorer until the economy we have in place no longer SERVES the people in it.

Right now I'd say about 20% of the population of all workers are basically REPLACEABLE by machines.

In ten years? Add some more percent of the workforces to that problem

In twenty years, most of you who are feeling so sanguine because you currently have marketable skills?

You're hosed, too.

And believe me when I tell you that very few of your will have the resources or even the mental acuity to retrain for a job that you can do better or more cheaply than a thinking machine.

I don't mean to be rude, but when every sentence is a new line it is hard to read. And if you don't agree with what I said...then you can't really be for technology, because you believe it will ultimately result in net unemployment.

What do you mean that is not what is happening? Again, I don't see massive unemployment correlating with modern technological advances. Current unemployment is not caused by technology. Again, people will not be perpetually unemployed. You keep forgetting that people have to be hired to build and design the machines. And if goods are cheaper to produce/cheaper to buy because of technology, people will have more money to spend or invest on everything else. Even if you have an ecnomy where all production is done by machines, and there are only a few workers working at one time, standards of living would still be higher. Because of the massive increase in supply due to cheap production, goods would be ridiculously cheap. Maybe a day's wage in such a future could cover a year's worth of expenses. The point of technology is to reduce the amount of work we have to do ourselves. Again, that is why children no longer have to work. Unemployment is not necessarily a bad thing if people do not need to constantly work to support themselves.

Either way, we are not at that point right now. There is still no net job loss caused by technology, and job restructuring. Most of what you say is just dramatic rhetoric.

In the beginning of THIS CENTURY we're seeing advancing technology replacing formerly highly skilled workers.

Such as? And do you have proof those workers are now unemployable as you claim?

Here are your logical fallacies:
1. To have a strong economy with high standards of living, everyone must be employed. (this is not true. The whole purpose of economic expansion is ultimately to work less and enjoy life more. Would we all be better off working 24/7?)
2. Machines create a class of people that cannot be employed. (Really? Because I am not seeing that at all...)
3. Increased production lowers the standard of living. (before you say strawman, reread your argument. Technology increases production. That is a fact. But then you say it creates unemployment, and lower standard of living. You ignore the rise in standard of living that cheaper products and a growing economy bring, and are thus implying that with increased production we are worse off. It is labor saving machinery and cost reducing methods that allow for increased production to occur).

And what technological advances of the 21st century are you even talking about that destroy jobs unlike any other past advances? It has only been 10 years, after all.

Luddites will be Luddites. Throughout history, people have been trying to blame technology for unemployment and economic problems, predicting doomsday in the future. And time and time again they are proven wrong. Yet people still arise with the same technophobic arguments, only they try to say somehow this time it is "different" for some concocted reason. You new reason is that there is somehow no new work in the economy, as if work is limited, and machines are taking away jobs as if the economy is a zero sum game. That is not how it works.

In 30 years, there will not be any more involuntary unemployment caused by technology than there has been in the past. But I guarantee that then the same technophobes will be making more excuses to blame problems on technology.

 

[ShackledNation]

Some quotes on technology:

The technological improvement in the production of A makes it possible to realize certain projects which could not be executed before because the workers required were employed for the production of A. The reduction of the number of workers in the A industry is caused by the increased demand of these other industries to which the opportunity to expand is offered.

Seen from the point of view of the consumers and the whole of society, machines appear as instruments that raise the productivity of human effort. They increase supply and make it possible to consume more material goods and to enjoy more leisure.

Ultimately, the goal of human society is to work less. Every advance we make is an attempt to make life easier and less of a burden. It is easier to call on a phone than send a letter or run over to a house. It is easier to drive across a state than to run 100 miles. It is easier to produce certain products with machines than with people. Ultimately, a society where we all work less is desireable. Maybe if machines did all the hard labor for us, we could focus on intellect and creativity instead.

The utopia of technophobes is a land where everyone is working hard to produce products that could be produced with less work. The utopia of free marketers is a land where people work less because of technology yet still enjoy higher standards of living. Take your pick.