I do think we're hitting what I think of as the Star Trek limit. There's a lot of manufacturing moving back to the US, I've heard - but it's not providing a lot of jobs or economic growth.
And with 3D printing and ever-smarter robotics, manufacturing is going to become smaller and smaller.
I heard it said that there was a time when 30% of the population of the US worked in food production, at least part time. And now, with factory farming methods, it's down to a tiny percentage - maybe 5%.
Standard economics says "that's *twenty five percent* of the population freed up to pursue other economic activity!" and there was a time when that was true. That would be more people to work in factories to produce goods... but now the factories don't need as many people to work there, either. And new services aren't growing so fast as to soak up the rest.
So what do ordinary people do?
People need to work - they need to feel useful. (And for those who don't fit the general rule, well, people whine about welfare, but you know something? As long as a person making minimum wage is substantially better off than a person on welfare, I'd rather pay those who don't want to work to stay the heck out of the workplace and not take up a space that someone interested and ambitious could have had!)
I'm reminded a bit of Vonnegut's Player Piano (which I read far too many years ago to remember well) but I remember that after the revolution, people were starting to feel good being able to do a bit of work on their own again - but what they were doing was rebuilding the automatons providing all the goods and services. Which points out the difficulty of the questions, I suppose.
One thing that might help temporarily is a huge carbon tax. It's artificially cheap to ship automobiles and refrigerators and washing machines - maybe we'd be better off if we made it so expensive they had to be built close to home. But that's a temporary fix; technology will overwhelm that, too.
I do hope you're right - socialism at some level is what I think we need. Properly managed, it can make almost everyone better off with minimal pain for the most wealthy now. And honestly, I'm not going to shed any tears if the uber-wealthy feel their children will be worse off (but still filthy rich), if the remaining 99.5% all know their children will be as well, or better off.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2016-03-27 07:23 pm (UTC)And with 3D printing and ever-smarter robotics, manufacturing is going to become smaller and smaller.
I heard it said that there was a time when 30% of the population of the US worked in food production, at least part time. And now, with factory farming methods, it's down to a tiny percentage - maybe 5%.
Standard economics says "that's *twenty five percent* of the population freed up to pursue other economic activity!" and there was a time when that was true. That would be more people to work in factories to produce goods... but now the factories don't need as many people to work there, either. And new services aren't growing so fast as to soak up the rest.
So what do ordinary people do?
People need to work - they need to feel useful. (And for those who don't fit the general rule, well, people whine about welfare, but you know something? As long as a person making minimum wage is substantially better off than a person on welfare, I'd rather pay those who don't want to work to stay the heck out of the workplace and not take up a space that someone interested and ambitious could have had!)
I'm reminded a bit of Vonnegut's Player Piano (which I read far too many years ago to remember well) but I remember that after the revolution, people were starting to feel good being able to do a bit of work on their own again - but what they were doing was rebuilding the automatons providing all the goods and services. Which points out the difficulty of the questions, I suppose.
One thing that might help temporarily is a huge carbon tax. It's artificially cheap to ship automobiles and refrigerators and washing machines - maybe we'd be better off if we made it so expensive they had to be built close to home. But that's a temporary fix; technology will overwhelm that, too.
I do hope you're right - socialism at some level is what I think we need. Properly managed, it can make almost everyone better off with minimal pain for the most wealthy now. And honestly, I'm not going to shed any tears if the uber-wealthy feel their children will be worse off (but still filthy rich), if the remaining 99.5% all know their children will be as well, or better off.