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Well that blew up in the Tories' faces. Glad to see progressives scoring points across the pond!
Maybe we need to find a way to adapt to increasing productivity by working less, rather than making more?What factors drive the decision to automate?Automation eliminates wages and sends people packing off to the unemployment line.It's both. Economics today drives automation, product and service innovation, green energy replacing/supplementing fossil fuel energy, and so on.But none of those factors reduce wages, enhance economic inequality, or produce job instability. The economic factors create more wealth, but they don't distribute it. As RV pointed out, "People who can rely on a stable salary are happier, can spend money they can give to other people and this process makes society wealthier and happier by extent" -- but the wealth distribution is almost entirely a political question.
Nope. Management does that. That's a political decision, not an economic one.
Not relevant. Once the decision to automate is taken, that doesn't automatically eliminate wages and send people to the unemployment line. Management could instead retrain people for other jobs, using the increased profits from the automation to enhance the productivity of the workers involved, and essentially investing the automation profits to generate even greater return for the business. The decision to use automation to cut costs instead of to grow revenues is a purely political one, taken by people, not by abstractions like "automation."
Good luck with that. Working poors are "a thing" now, imagine how well those fine people looking very hard to find ways to slash jobs and increase profits will look upon such ideas.
Btw, depending on the sector, I don't think you can increase productivity by working less.
Well that blew up in the Tories' faces. Glad to see progressives scoring points across the pond!
Well, after seven years of almost continuous failure, the Tories still ended up in government, just now propped up by religious former terrorist sympathisers (how this works with relation to their demonisation of Corbyn for supporting peace talks with the IRA in the 1980s is still a bit unclear, but hey ho), so it's not exactly a massive progressive win.
However, coming from where they were just two years ago it's been a huge success for them. Unless the Tories get the best Brexit deal ever and the economy goes through the roof, the chances of them winning the next election - whether that's in five months or five years - has just taken a hit. Their secret weapon in the post-Brexit election was always the idea that Corbyn was unelectable and he just proved them wrong on a massive scale.
What starts now is the drip-feed of by-elections (when MPs have to quit for whatever reason - family, scandals, deaths - and a single-seat election takes place). If the Tories are lucky they'll all be in safe seats and won't effect anything. If Labour start taking seats from Tories, or the moderate unionists from the DUP in Northern Ireland, then this alliance will collapse well before the five years are up.
The core idea of capitalism is that companies that do things you like get more of your business. People seriously need to understand that. Take responsibility for what you buy. And before anyone says it, not everyone is without options. When the Muhammed pictures hit, people in the arab world boycotted Danish butter very effectively. It cost the Danish export sector billions. So... find out who is owned by who. Learn who runs not a perfect company, but a decent one. Stop whining about bad company policy and keep eating those companies' foods. You can't change it yourself... but it has never been so easy to organize things. This, more than anything out of the socialist 70s, will make people take notice.
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The core idea of capitalism is that companies that do things you like get more of your business. People seriously need to understand that. Take responsibility for what you buy. And before anyone says it, not everyone is without options. When the Muhammed pictures hit, people in the arab world boycotted Danish butter very effectively. It cost the Danish export sector billions. So... find out who is owned by who. Learn who runs not a perfect company, but a decent one. Stop whining about bad company policy and keep eating those companies' foods. You can't change it yourself... but it has never been so easy to organize things. This, more than anything out of the socialist 70s, will make people take notice.
Danish butter had nothing to do with the cartoons in question, and I doubt that boycotting dairy products had any impact on 'Jyllens Posten' (sp?)
Additionally, what happens if you work for the company in question? Refusing to buy their products, or leaving, isn't going to do anything to change the internal practices you happen to disapprove of, and will still leave the people who remain to suffer from them. Charmingly retro strike action might.
Never mind what happens if, say, the organisation you dislike happens to be a monopoly, as per private water companies in the UK.
'Right! I've had enough! To protest against Thames Water, I shall neither wash nor drink until they bow to my demands - this I swear, on the relics of Saint Stinky!'
As I understand it, you're suggesting they can use the automation to drastically expand - do far more work with the same number of workers?
That's one option. Another is to do the same amount of work on that task with fewer workers, which frees workers to work on other tasks. (Hence the probable retraining.)
It's far from always true that any given business has the market to expand quickly enough to keep a constant workforce, especially in cases where that would mean moving into entirely new industries.
But if any given business doesn't have the market to expand, then, by definition, it needs to increase its market, which implies a need for more people working on market creation and expansion.
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I thought the core idea of Capitalism was to make the most money with the least expenditure.
Well, I can't type what I actually think of Farage as that runs afoul of Paizo's TOS.
Amen to that. If I never see his face in the papers again I will be happy.
Just to really rub salt into the wound I live in the region he represents as an MEP, so he is (failing) to represent my interests.
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I don't know who Jonathan Pie is, but I quite enjoyed this video. (Possibly NSFW language)
We're not out of the frying pan yet. Sinn Fein has pointed out that a DUP-Tory alliance whilst the Northern Ireland Assembly is dissolved violates the Good Friday Agreement (the peace treaty which ended the Troubles in 1998 after thirty years of violence and three thousand deaths), which guarantees that the Westminster government will not interfere in the internal politics of Northern Ireland. Under the new arrangement the DUP will prop up the Tories and vote with them directly on issues pertaining to Northern Ireland whilst Sinn Fein and their substantial chunk of the electorate are completely shut out of the process.
The DUP are arguing that 1) there is no formal coalition, so legally there is no violation of the agreement, and 2) Sinn Fein are welcome to take their seats in Westminster at any time to check the arrangement (it would reduce the absolute majority to 2, which would be borderline unworkable). 1) is a very slender technicality to rest on and 2) is probably not going to happen (although Sinn Fein have to be at least considering it just for the craic of screwing over the DUP and Tories).
The risk, although unlikely for now, is that Sinn Fein walks out of the GFA altogether and the Assembly is dissolved permanently, which would be an utterly cataclysmic result and runs the risk of a resumption of violence.
Members of the Conservative Party are already having migraines over this and a quite a few are rejecting the idea of any kind of agreement or talks with the DUP altogether and just rule as a minority party (in the knowledge that the DUP would vote similarly to the Tories most of the time regardless).
Yes, and don't think for a second the blairites have relented in their hate of Jeremy Corbyn and their desire to oust him, no matter the cost.
And this is from today.
"New Labour" people (aka "the other Tories") won't accept Corbyn the day he wins the elections. For them controlling the party and the power inherent in doing so is more important than anything else.
Yes, and don't think for a second the blairites have relented in their hate of Jeremy Corbyn and their desire to oust him, no matter the cost.
And this is from today.
"New Labour" people (aka "the other Tories") won't accept Corbyn the day he wins the elections. For them controlling the party and the power inherent in doing so is more important than anything else.
It's both disappointing and reassuring to see that "my way or else" types are found in number outside the U.S.
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The core idea of capitalism is that companies that do things you like get more of your business...
Unfortunately, nonsense.
Consider the professor of economics who proved that the US would save a lot of money by sending out pre-filled tax forms which just say 'let us know if this is wrong'.
It would have saved time, money and stress for millions of people.
The companies which produce tax-form support software and manpower lobbied hard and got the legislation slapped down.
Capitalism at its purest.
Capitalism is just a series of exploitative monopolies waiting to happen.
Only regulation prevents this.
The core idea of capitalism is that companies that do things you like get more of your business...Unfortunately, nonsense.
Perhaps, but so is your counterexample.
Consider the professor of economics who proved that the US would save a lot of money by sending out pre-filled tax forms which just say 'let us know if this is wrong'.It would have saved time, money and stress for millions of people.
The companies which produce tax-form support software and manpower lobbied hard and got the legislation slapped down.
Legislation isn't economics, it's politics, in its purest form. A capitalist, free-market solution to this problem (answer to this question) would have enabled taxpayer choice about how to deal with their forms problem -- you can go to the we-do-it-for-you-for-free company, or the we-do-it-for-you-but-you-need-to-pay company, and we'd see which one was more profitable. If there's legislation involved, then we're not talking about an economic question at all, as one of those models isn't even permitted to exist.
The core idea of capitalism isn't quite that companies that do things that you like get more of your business. It's that companies that do popular things get more business generally. If no company wants to offer what you specifically want, there may not be anyone who is willing to offer what you specifically want, and you specifically may be out of luck. But the core idea of capitalism is that there should be no legal barrier to offering it to you.
Capitalism fails in all sorts of ways, most notably in the provision of public goods. The interface between capitalism and the rule of law is another issue, as the black market generally tends to prove. But the fact that the rule of law itself can also fail isn't a problem with capitalism.
Yes, and don't think for a second the blairites have relented in their hate of Jeremy Corbyn and their desire to oust him, no matter the cost.
This is from february
And this is from today.
"New Labour" people (aka "the other Tories") won't accept Corbyn the day he wins the elections. For them controlling the party and the power inherent in doing so is more important than anything else.
A substantial number of the Blairite wing have gone over to Corbyn. Prescott got behind him on the campaign trail with all guns blazing (which is not an insignificant achivement: Prescott remains the only Blair-era cabinet member with real credibility and popularity) and Smith, Benn and even Mandelson have all apologised to Corbyn and admitted that they were wrong about them.
There are a few anti-Corbyn hardliners, but their days I think are numbered. Labour came within 3,000 votes of a majority government and they left between 13 and 16 swing seats on the table (enough to get a coalition with the SNP and Lib Dems) because they didn't campaign there.
The core idea of capitalism is that companies that do things you like get more of your business...Unfortunately, nonsense.
Consider the professor of economics who proved that the US would save a lot of money by sending out pre-filled tax forms which just say 'let us know if this is wrong'.
It would have saved time, money and stress for millions of people.
The companies which produce tax-form support software and manpower lobbied hard and got the legislation slapped down.
Capitalism at its purest.
Capitalism is just a series of exploitative monopolies waiting to happen.
Only regulation prevents this.
You said it yourself: The politicians decided your example bill wouldn't pass. A spectacular example of regulation, not capitalism, in action.
Capitalism has faults. Blame it for those.
