Economics Quandry- Millions of Producers, Billions of Consumers

[Cassius23]

Good afternoon,

I hope this is one of those, "Well duh, it's *Blah*" type questions, but here it is.

Because of technology available since around the bronze age, a group of individuals can produce all of the things needed for everyone else to live. In the past we developed an economy in which individuals produced things that were not needed and traded them to get the things that they did need.

The problem is that technology has improved and fewer and fewer people are needed in order to produce what is needed for more and more people to live(and we are running out of the resources that the individuals who don't produce goods essential for life use for creating things). The way we have made up for this up until now is to have more and more people do "busy work" which allows them to gain the ability to get what they need to survive.

If we reduce our consumption, what do we do in regards to the individuals who don't do things required for life(and can't because we don't need as many people as we have to produce enough food, shelter, etc.)? Do we go back to the literal stone age so that you can only support yourself? Do we rotate the jobs essential to society and the rest of the time is a person's own(ala Robert Anton Wilson's RICH economy- http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/rawilson.html )?

Ideas? Does this make sense?

C23

[orwell]

1. You have asked a critical question...

...that is surprisingly rarely asked.

Technology should have allowed us to all shorten the work week by now. It is entirely conceivable that we could solve much of the chronic unemployment/underemployment "problem" by simply shortening the work week. The catch has always been that we have bought into an old paradigm that equates employment with productivity. This is evidenced by the hourly compensation model.

What happens, 1000 years in the future (assuming that we haven't destroyed what we call our civilization), if or when we are able to produce all the things we want out of thin air. Think the replicator model from Star Trek. Do we still have money, employment, hourly wages? Why would any of that be relevant?

Until we get over the culture's wholesale rapture of the Protestant ethic and it's bastard child of unfettered capitalism, these questions will never be addressed. If fact, the very questions are tantamount to heresy.

Where is the benefit of technology? It's benefits have primarily flowed to the elite classes that enjoy the fruits of the many mentally indentured serf's labor. All the while these pillars of society pontificate on the virtues of "hard work" and the Horatio Alger myth.

We could easily provide all the goods and services we need with far less total effort if we were to embrace efficiency by tying compensation to productivity. We need to stop redefining what the store of value (money) is to suit the current political climate. We also need to fundamentally ask ourselves what constitutes a productive good. This is a difficult question as it speaks to the core of our societal value systems and our cultural worldviews.

[Cassius23]

2. Ahh, productive good

That is a very sticky point.

One of the models I've always found interesting is the "monastic" model, where the "excess" population is dedicated towards a collectively approved task. Most people think that this has to be a literal monastary but it doesn't have to be. People can be dedicated towards research in life and societal improvement, creation of art, or any number of really awesome things.

One of the things that WWII did was stall the need to bring up this question. Think about it. In order to produce a tank requires a lot of time and effort on behalf of a number of people. This effort is literally blown to bits and so is required over and over again. It was like a horrible, tragic sort of busy work. The problem is that if there is another war that would eat up enough production it would turn us into radioactive light bulbs.

[orwell]

4. That is why these questions are rarely asked...

...as they are bound into so many cultural, economic, religious assumptions.

This is why the original post is provocative and highly worthwhile. Responses tell us far more about ourselves and our assumptions than many care to face.

I do believe that these are critical questions to discuss, and are at the heart of many of the debates over war, health, economy and politics. I don't think people realize how much the promise of the future has been hijacked by the assumptions of the past.

[chaska]

3. I've been thinking along the same lines a lot lately. How do we as a country continue...

year after year to send more money than we take in without eventual meeting with disaster?

I don't have the answer, but I look forward to reading your article later.

[orwell]

5. Simple answer...

...We can't.

That is why the rate of change of our standard of living is falling relative to the new rising powers in the world (India and China). This is typical of the latter stage of all empires that have come before us. We are in the "money printing"/something for nothing stage. That is also why military power has usurped diplomatic power. The other countries take our IOU's because we have implicitly accepted the role of GloboCop. Eventually, that will bankrupt us.

[chaska]

6. Good answer!