Since I have heard a number of interviews with people advocating stipends due to the decreasing jobs market I went on a search for some of them. Here's one proposal and the author has done his homework on the subject: http://marshallbrain.com/25000.htm
More detailed information on the impact of technology on the workforce: http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm James F. Newell wrote: > That is quite a good value for economies of 100 years ago, and is not > unreasonable, for many people, now. Even now, it is true though that > some people do valuable things that the market will not pay for. > Certainly, no corporation would have wanted Einstein as an employee, > because his Theory of Relativity did not lead immediately to the > design of a profitable product. Pure research is generally poorly > supported by the private sector, even though without it, we would > still be back at Roman level technology. Also, poets, composers, and > others are often not supported by the free market, even though what > they create will be of value for many hundreds of years. A number of > painters,like van Gogh, were paid nothing or very little for their > work, but in future decades, collectors have traded their paintings on > the market for millions of dollars each. So just having people support > themselves doesn't work for people doing certain kinds of valuable work. > > But I am talking about the effects of increasing automation into the > future. When almost all the work producing goods and services is done > by machines, there is nothing the 99% unemployed could possibly do > that they could sell to support themselves. People simply cannot > compete with robot-equivalents in routine kinds of work. And of > course. if 99% of the population were unemployed, there would be > almost nobody to buy what the automated businesses could produce. > > But of course, in reality, most people would starve to death before we > reached that 99% level of unemployment. But the same problems, to a > somewhat lesser extent, will be occurring on the way to that end > point. When 50% of the working age population is unemployed, and can't > compete with the robot-equivalents, the market for goods and services > produced by the corporations will be only 50% of what it would be if > everyone had an income. At 30% unemployed, the market for goods and > services produced by corporations will be down 30%. > > So whatever the ideals might be, people supporting themselves will > rapidly become impossible in practice for more and more people, and > trying to base the economy on that will simply lead to disaster. > > But that doesn't mean we want to get rid of the businesses. It is good > for people to open and own businesses, though I don't think I will > take up space discussing why that is good. So we need some way to > organize the cash flows for the economy so that everything works the > way we want it to. > > I won't repeat my original suggestion here. However, perhaps you might > look for some alternative possibilities which would fit in better with > your values. You might come up with something quite good. > > Jim > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Nelson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: I would venture that the people should be responsible to support > >> themselves for the most part and the government should only be >> supporting an environment to this end. N. >> >> > > > > >
