09-11-2012, 12:56 PM
(09-11-2012, 06:38 AM)Jester Wrote: All quite beside the point. Do you have any evidence or theory to defend the central argument, that as incomes rise, people will simply become unemployed, rather than shifting their labour to other sectors? That real prices are rising, not falling? Which is the equivalent of saying people are getting poorer and poorer, year in and year out? Because this all sounds crazy to me, completely at odds with even the most basic empirical facts about economic growth.
This is a pretty interesting discussion here. I'm wondering what you mean, Jester, when you say that incomes are rising. It's been my understanding that historical income rise in the US is mostly due to an increasing number of women who enter the workforce, and that per person, incomes have actually been going down (adjusting for inflation). The real gain in income has actually come from the reduction in price for almost all common goods. Essentially, food is much cheaper than it was decades ago. Same with clothing, "basic" appliances, and so on. This naturally increases the buying power of every dollar earned, so in that sense, incomes have been rising.
But why is everything cheaper? With food, advances in farming technology have most certainly made production and distribution of food cheaper. A solid theory as to the cause of the obesity crisis in the US is the drastic reduction of food prices over the last few decades, but I suppose that's a separate discussion. With clothing, appliances, and other expenses, it could be argued that the cheaper prices are due entirely to the exploitation of foreign economies (e.g. China) for cheap labor combined with low distribution costs (transport).
What happens when the cheap sources of labor around the world dry up? What happens when the "Western" countries can't find 3rd world countries to abuse anymore? It does seem reasonable (at least to me, who is by no means an economist) that the world can reach a point eventually where due to productivity increases and automation, there is literally nothing for most of the population to do. Maybe we'll all just play World of Warcraft all day.
Be right back, grinding some cloth.
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.