DunkingDognuts t1_j9tuxkz wrote
Reply to comment by Ok_Letter_9284 in Almost 40% of domestic tasks could be done by robots ‘within decade’ | Artificial intelligence (AI) by Gari_305
Your comment is exactly what I’m talking about.
That one owner has no obligation whatsoever to share any profit in any way shape or form.
Unless there was a massive change in the way society views, corporations, and profit-based strategies, the only end result will be more money at the top, no money at the bottom, and a literal corporate feudalism.
Ok_Letter_9284 t1_j9tvfj0 wrote
Unfortunately there’s no short way to discuss complex topics, so I apologize in advance. Please bear with me, I’ll be as clear and brief as possible.
Lets imagine an explorer discovers an iron mine. Society wants to promote exploration so it decides to reward the explorer.
There are two main ways of doing this.
Capitalism. The explorer KEEPS the mine. He hires workers from society to mine the mine, and sells the iron to society. The explorer keeps the profits.
Socialism. Society keeps the mine. The explorer is paid a finders fee. A manager who specializes in managing iron mines is hired to hire workers from society to mine the iron. The iron is sold to society. Society splits the profits.
Notice a couple of important points. One, in both scenarios, everybody is being paid for their work. There’s no “free shit” in socialism unless you count the windfall of the iron. But if you do, the same is true of capitalism, it is just the explorer who gets the free shit.
Two, its important to understand where the profit comes from. Its LABOR the town must provide to the explorer. Not the mining, that happens anyway. But to pay the profit, society must do more labor to get the same iron. More doctoring, tailoring, farming, etc. To the benefit of the explorer.
Lastly, its more than just the profit. Under capitalism, the explorer gets “property rights” to direct the workings of the iron mine, despite his lack of expertise. And the operation of the mine VERY MUCH affects society.
DunkingDognuts t1_j9ty77r wrote
I completely understand the difference between capital and labor.
The reality is, in our world today, an explorer, discovers a mine. That explorer receives a grant funded by taxes to develop that mine. A businessman purchases the mine from the government for a pittance (because they have a friend in the government who tip them off to a bargain). Businessman hires people at substandard wages to develop the mine into a profitable business and pockets the majority of the profit.
In the businessman’s mind, he owes nobody anything because he is the person who developed the mine, and therefore anything that comes out of it is his to exploit in any way he wants to. He has no obligation to support workers, in fact, he resents having to pay them for their labor
A new technology that comes along which can replace 10 laborers with one machine that is less likely to break down or refuse to work overtime.
The owner fires those 10 laborers who now are unemployed and have no income.
The owner, seeing the profitability of having machines, instead of people, do the work, purchases several more machines, run by a staff of engineers, which is much smaller than the large number of laborers employed earlier.
As a result of not having to pay wages, the business owner sees a dramatic increase in profits, reinforcing his belief that automation is the solution to profitability.
Eventually, the machines become automated enough that the engineers are not even needed.
More profit!
Now, the businessman has an automated business that produces a product which he can sell and not have to incur the cost of any employees.
Everyone who is employed previously at that business is either unemployed, or has found other employment elsewhere, but the total number of employed people will never recover to the level. It was when the mind was using 100% human labor
The government,lobbied by the businessman lobbies, asks him to contribute to a fund to pay for the out of work miners living expenses.
The businessman tells the politicians to go get stuffed because he owes the former employees of his company nothing (and he is absolutely correct about that because he has no contract with them stating he is responsible for their welfare.)
So now we have end state capitalism, which is we have a small number of business owners who rely upon automation to produce their products and a huge under class which relatively speaking is a modern day peasantry.
How do you fix this without a bloody Revolution?
Ok_Letter_9284 t1_j9tyx46 wrote
Right, that is the reality now. That’s the point. We make the rules. They’re completely made up. By us.
We should pick rules that have the greatest overall benefit to humanity. I.e. its time to change the rules.
Let me dispel one more myth while I have your attention.
Capitalism has not “lifted more ppl out of poverty.. blah blah blah”. PROGRESS has. That is, science and technology.
I can prove it.
Imagine a circle of ppl, a book, and $5. We can make the rules of our economy any way we choose. We can make the book and money go round the circle faster, slower, clockwise, counter, etc.
But we cannot improve anyones life outside of ensuring equitable access to the book and money. The only way to do that is to WRITE MORE BOOKS!
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