Re: Views on Rifkin's theory
My interest was not so much in the provenance of "Rifkin's theory"--though the quotation from Bertrand Russell was fascinating and instructive. I doubt that Rifkin would claim to be the first to argue that the net effect of technological innovation is a reduction in the number of available jobs. Neither do I put much confidence into Rifkin's proposed amelioration of the system by bringing volunteerism into the marketplace. My main interest was simply to ascertain if most of the thoughtful people on this list believe that technology is gradually reducing the number of jobs available within the current economic framework. The question is important because the mainstream media are propounding the opposite view, that new technology will bring more and better jobs within a marketplace economy. One finds even well-meaning, compassionate journalists like David Crane, economics editor of the Toronto Star, vigorously promoting this optimistic scenario. (As Rifkin notes, that was the predominant view in the 1920's and earlier.) Needless to say, many ordinary people are taken in by these hopeful arguments. When I was talking to a bank teller about on-line banking further decimating her profession beyond what the ATM has already brought, she responded that surely lots of good new jobs would be created by the new technology. Since all these people are voters, I think it important to counter the optimistic delusion that the current economic structure will heal itself. Another point: when we talk about dealing with structural unemployment created by technological advance, I think we need to make clear whether we are discussing short term palliative measures within the present economic framework and long term visions of what our human world could and should be like. In the long term I agree with the points made by several people that the only secure foundation for a comfortable life in the future has to be based on (a) population reduction and (b) an adequate basic income granted to everyone. The late great Isaac Asimov believed that one billion was about the optimum population for our planet as it would enable everyone to live in great comfort without endangering the environment. At any rate, I seem to have the answer to my question: virtually all the thoughtful people on this list agree that technology reduces the number of jobs available in the present economic structure. The one exception is Douglas Wilson, who is certainly a thoughtful person. I believe that I understand the concept of the assignment problem well enough though I could not necessarily do the math. However, I remain convinced that there are presently more people wanting jobs than there are jobs available. Hence I do not think that even the most perfect solution of the assignment problem would produce full employment. This is especially true when you add in other factors like geographic limitations imposed by a spouse already having a job. A difficult to place person might require a one-in-a-million matching when he is restricted to a geographic region holding considerably less than one million jobs. And there are people who are not going to be tolerated for very long by any employer I have ever met. For instance, some people with substance abuse problems whose attendance is extremely sporadic as is their performance when they are on the job. This is not to say that Douglas Wilson's thoughts on the assignment problem are without merit. It could be an important palliative measure while the present economic order endures and it would be invaluable once we have achieved a world where people are looking for work because they want a task that fits their measure and not because they need the money. By the way, if you solve it in the near future (before I reach retirement age) let me know as I have been seriously underemployed for the past 12 years! Regards, Victor Milne FIGHT THE BASTARDS! An anti-neoconservative website at http://www3.sympatico.ca/pat-vic/pat-vic/ LONESOME ACRES RIDING STABLE at http://www3.sympatico.ca/pat-vic/
Re: Theobald's Latest Message
At 04:56 PM 11/20/98 -1000, Jay Hanson wrote: >- Original Message - >From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >>The other question is whether the upswing in energy around Y2K and >>funddamental change will lead to attempts of various >>people/organizations to centralize energy flows or whether we shall be >>wise enough to set up decentralized/chaordic structures. > >What's "decentralized/chaordic structures"? I presume they refer to Dee Hock's non-hierarchical "management-by-a-group-of-equals" structure (chaos/order) see http://www.cascadepolicy.org/dee_hock http://www.funderstanding.com/mailing1.htm Similar structure is proposed by Wilber/Koestler as "holarchical", being the "management structure" that the "most complex holon", the human being, runs by -- see "Brief History of Everything" etc: http://www.shambhala.com/wilber They have similar effect, in my opinion, to the Co-operative structure of Mondragon, and the Direct Democracy structure brought about by "citizen-initiated binding referendum" >What problem do they solve? hierarchy/dictatorship problems Colin Stark >Jay
Theobald's Latest Message
Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 12:11:24 -0800 From: Robert Theobald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Millennial Discontinuities. Since coming back from Australia it seems to me that we are on the cusp of two questions. First, will Y2K be used by people like us as a catalyst for positive change or not. This is a difficult question because there are two dangers, I think. One is to ignore it. The other is to let it get too important. The other question is whether the upswing in energy around Y2K and funddamental change will lead to attempts of various people/organizations to centralize energy flows or whether we shall be wise enough to set up decentralized/chaordic structures. The piece which follows is an indirect attempt to deal with both of these issues and is hopefully useful for them. This sort of thinking will underlie our effort to carry through the satellite programming. MILLENNIAL DISCONTINUITIES; LIVING IN THE RAPIDS OF CHANGE Robert Theobald. This piece can be circulated and printed freely. It is part of an effort to encourage individuals and communities to grasp the challenges of the next years. For more information see www.resilientcommunities.org Robert Theobald has been working on fundamental change issues for over forty years. His most recent book is Reworking Success. I don't know whether to laugh or cry as people make confident predictions about the shape of 1999. I would have thought that economists and social analysts might have been humbled by their dramatic failures this year. But theres no sign that people are willing to recognize the range of discontinuities that face us at this point. A year ago, we were being told that the Asian crisis would not affect the rich countries. Now the story line is that there have been some significant downsides but that we can be confident that they will be contained. As an economist by training, although I was long ago excommunicated for thinking too broadly, I find this extraordinarily naive. Asia is in the throes of a deflationary spiral due to massive overcapacity and its impacts on us will continue to be very significant. This reality alone makes prediction extraordinarily tricky. How much will the ability of countries to supply goods more cheaply undermine production in Europe and North America? Will the near recessions in industry such as steel, oil and textiles spread more broadly? Will consumers remain confident and be willing to spend all that they earn without putting aside any savings? There is an also an extraordinary cross-cut which makes clear thinking about the next year far more difficult. This is the impact of Y2K. As questions about this issue get closer to the surface, we are realizing that there can be no certainties and that this uncertainty will persist until the events actually occur. This means that firms, and people, will have to make decisions without even reasonable levels of knowledge. There is already evidence that many companies will abandon just-in-time strategies which limit stocks to what is immediately needed and aim to have enough in hand to keep working through disruptions. Downward tendencies in economic systems could therefore be temporarily reversed. But they would be redoubled when systems settle down again and destocking takes place. But the even more dramatic issue is around the behavior of individuals, families and communities. There is growing concern in many people's minds about what will happen in January 2000. A growing number of people are suggesting the need to stock up on food and to have more money in ones wallet. If these trends were contained, they would give people a sense of greater control over their lives. But if they were exaggerated through fear and panic, they could be enormously disruptive and greatly complicate the management of whatever technical Y2K breakdowns do occur. These are the immediate issues for forecasters in 1999. They are, however, only the tip of the iceberg. We are in the middle of a titanic clash between two ways of seeing the world. One assumes that technology and maximum economic growth will resolve the problems of the world that continuation of twentieth century emphases is viable. The other believes that we need new goals. It argues that only a concentration on social cohesion, ecological integrity, effective decision-making and the quality of life can prevent massive disasters. It emphasizes the organic over the material and believes that we must mesh the spiritual with the rational. My recent trip to Australia showed the strength of the latter vision and the number of people who hold it. Our understanding of the strength of this current is held back by our failure to recognize the interconnections between all the challenges to the current dynamics. Those of us who want a better future need to see the many forms in which the clash is taking place. One of the most dramatic is the difference between our a
Re: Theobald's Latest Message
- Original Message - From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >The other question is whether the upswing in energy around Y2K and >funddamental change will lead to attempts of various >people/organizations to centralize energy flows or whether we shall be >wise enough to set up decentralized/chaordic structures. What's "decentralized/chaordic structures"? What problem do they solve? Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: FW: Re: Views on Rifkin's theory
Thank you for this. I've never seen it before, and it sure goes to the heart of things. By the same token, farm labourers would work about ten minutes a day and factory workers about the same amount of time. That being the case, it would be simpler for everyone just to pay them not to work, as we pay (mostly) big time farmers and agribusiness) not to grow things-- and as we risk human health and who knows what else to enable farmers to produce a greter surplus of milk with the help of rBGH, so that Monsanto may fatten profits. Just as we pay many industries to pollute, making many harmful practices so cheap that better practices (or energy sources) can't compete with them. A large part of the problem is the fear that people would not work if they were not pressed by fear and necessity. The truth has always been that most people have always been eager to work if given something really useful and not too horrible to do. There is also the secondary fear, that people who didn't face starvation would have to be paid enough to live decently, which makes unemployment very popular with employers. Now that there is no where near enough economic work to go round, we can no longer afford these fear-driven prejudices. Caspar Davis At 3:07 PM -0500 11/20/98, Don Chisholm wrote: >... or by Bertrand Russell, about that time: > >INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION - Friend or Foe > > Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are >engaged in >the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, >working >(say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same >number of men can make twice as many pins. Pins are already so cheap that >hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, >everybody concerned in the manufacture of pins would take to working four >hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in >the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work >eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half >the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There >is, in the end, just as much leisure as in the other plan, but half >the men >are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way it is >insured >that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all around instead of >being >a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined? >..In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays - 1935 > > > > >Don Chisholm > 416 484 6225fax 484 0841 > email [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > The Gaia Preservation Coalition (GPC) > http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/gaia-pc > personal page: http://home.ican.net/~donchism/dchome.html > >"There is an almost gravitational pull toward putting out of mind >unpleasant >facts. And our collective ability to face painful facts is no greater >than >our personal one. We tune out, we turn away, we avoid. Finally we >forget, >and forget we have forgotten. A lacuna hides the harsh truth." - >psychologist Daniel Goleman > \/
Re: FW: Re: Views on Rifkin's theory
At 09:39 PM 11/19/98 -0800,[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Walker) wrote: >Pete Vincent > >>I think it could hardly be called _Rifkin's_ theory, as it has been >>around an awfully long time, being discussed explicitly, for example, >>in Robert Theobald's 1964(?) book. > >I'd give it a much older pedigree than that. Stephen Leacock started out as >a political economist and wrote a very interesting piece on the same theme >in 1921. M. King Hubbert's "Man hours and production" dates from the mid 1930s. > >Regards, > >Tom Walker ... or by Bertrand Russell, about that time: INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION - Friend or Foe Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins. Pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacture of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as in the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all around instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined? ..In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays - 1935 Don Chisholm 416 484 6225fax 484 0841 email [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Gaia Preservation Coalition (GPC) http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/gaia-pc personal page: http://home.ican.net/~donchism/dchome.html "There is an almost gravitational pull toward putting out of mind unpleasant facts. And our collective ability to face painful facts is no greater than our personal one. We tune out, we turn away, we avoid. Finally we forget, and forget we have forgotten. A lacuna hides the harsh truth." - psychologist Daniel Goleman \/
Re: Views on Rifkin's theory?
Dear futurework and others, I am delighted that we (on the futurework list) are getting onto the issue of work, and welcome all of the thoughtful posts people have made on that subject. Also with the recognition that Theobald was writing about the issue 30 years before Rifkin, although the latter has achieved greater notoriety. For those who don't know, Theobald's current thrust (ongoing for 10 years or more) is that it is the very success of the old paradigm which has created theproblems we now face, and that massive change is essential if we are to survive. He is therefore promotiong individual and community resilience and adaptibility to the inevitable but unforeseeable changes which are continuing to occur faster and faster. I think that the quest for "jobs" is barking up the wrong tree. There is clearly vast amounts of work that needs to be done, from building houses to (especially) providing community for the young, the old and the alienated, but most of it is "uneconomic". Old paradigm businesses are caught up in a feeding frenzy, swallowing each other up and spitting out workers, who are then sometimes rehired for much lower wages and no benefits (see the article appended to this post). The effect of this has been to multiply inequality beyond all bounds, massively shifting wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich. According to the Nov. 2 McLean's (p. 69) in 1973 (just about the peak of general prosperity) the income of the richest 10% of Canadians was 21 times that of the poorest 10%. In 1996 it was 314 times that of the poorest 10%!! As Jay Hanson points out, we cannot satisfy everyone's material desires (even if we did accrete a few additional planets). As Gandhi said, there is enough gor everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed (which is limitless). The new society must focus on quality of life rather than quantity of stuff. That means better communication and much richer interpersonal relationships but far less consumption on the part of the rich countries and classes. I see this not as a hardship but as an opportunity to greatly increase human happiness. I have never noticed a correlation between wealth (as opposed to lack of necessities) and happiness. Far fewer people are needed to produce the THINGS we need. Food, clothing, shelter, etc. can be and are being produced by machines with little and decreasing human intervention. Even many "service" jobs are being eliminated or shuffled onto the "consumer" (and thus "externalized"), including not only gas pumping and restaurant service, but even answering the telephone, so there is no real hope of traditional employment there, either. The next area of automation will be "professionsl services". Even much traditional work, such as the development of LINUX and indeed the writing and editing that I and many others do on listrservs is now being done voluntarily and cooperatively. The real problem we face is one of distribution rather than jobs.How do we distribute stuff equitably? Over a century ago, Henry George said that those who sequestered and benefitted from monopolies for their private use and profit, starting with land, the greatest natural monopoly and government licences which exclude the unlicenced from various industries, must pay fair market rent to the rest of society for the resources they thus monopolize. He also extended the principle to patents (exclusive of reasonable compensation to the inventor), and I would argue that it could be extended to most large-scale manufacturing, which has been heavily subsidized by tax breaks and outright grants from the public purse. All of these activities could and should pay rent to society, the bulk of which could be distributed to everyone as 'earthshares', which would provide a basic income for all. Those who want more income would be free to pursue traditional careers or to go into business for themselves, but everyone, being freed from the fear of need, would be able to do what many already are doing- performing a huge variety of volunteer work from communicating on the Web to feeding and counseling their neighbors in need. Rifkin seems to want to bring the volunteer sector into the market economy. I think we need to free people from the market so that they can get on with the real work that needs to be done. This is largely what happened in aboriginal and even medieval society. It took much less than full time "work" to supply human needs (except where the rich were appropriating most of the fruits of people's work for themselves) so people spent a large part of their time celebrating feast days or, as one aboriginal woman put it, "making things', by which I believe she meant things like pots, songs, and stories. Now machines have made it possible for everyone to enjoy a much more comfortable lifestyle, complete with many electric conveniences and universal electronic communication. We can enjoy conversations with people all over the world as easily as peop
Re: FW - more on the underlying combinatorial reasons
: "Douglas P. Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > -- The first line on my home >page says "Imagine a future world in which it is easy to find a good >job." Perhaps it would have captured my intentions better if it had >said "Imagine a future world in which it is easy FOR EVERYONE to find >a good job." > >In a previous message I quoted J.A. Campbell, from a technical book on >computing: "the central problem in computer science [is] minimizing or >avoiding the effects of the combinatorial explosions of possible paths >in a search space." Then I suggested that is also the central problem >in in labour and employment, and throughout the rest of society, >wherever matching occurs. > [...] >I had a couple of responses from people who still think there is a >shortage of jobs, which would make my plan unworkable. I disagree. >Please let me spell out my plan in more detail. >First, and most important, don't focus only on the unemployed. As I >repeatedly say, unemployment is only the tip of the iceberg, the real >problem is the mismatch between people and jobs. There's an old joke >which goes: > >Q: "How many people work for your company?" >A: "Oh, about 20 percent of them." >That's hilariously true: most businesses have a few employees who >really do their best, and a lot who just put in time. But I don't >blame the ones who just do the minimum, or say they are just lazy, >instead I blame the system which has led them to a job they are not >really suited for. If these employees seem to have an attitude >problem, it is probably because a job or workplace environment they >hate has made them embittered and robbed them of motivation. You have stated that the fundamental employment problem is the matching of people to jobs, not the lack of work available, yet here you are arguing against your own thesis, in that you imply that inefficiencies in job matching mean five times as many people are working as need to be in order to have our economy running as it does. This further implies that if employment matching was optimized, we'd have five times as much economic activity as we now have. As economic activity is directly linked to generation of pollution, and depletion of non- renewable resources, it is not at all clear that this is a desirable outcome, particularly as no where near five times the current level of economic activity would be required to provide North americans (for example), with a secure and comfortable existence. It seems to me what we really want is a society and economy structured in such a way as to provide the maximum comfort for the population while exerting the minimum footprint on the ecology. This means that economic activity per unit population wants to be minimized, within these constraints. The details of the definition of such a society then must be debated in terms of what are the degrees of compromise we are prepared to accept in the conflicting priorities of human freedom, dignity, comfort and security versus sustainable ecological integrity. On the other issue, I have no fear of mathematics, nor engineering, in analysis of social issues. However, I will state categorically that algorithm-based analysis is inadequate to the task, and most likely actively deceptive. Nothing less than fullblown simulation is able to yield a valid analysis, but this is something easily within reach of current computing power. Systems engineering applied to the whole problem of economic srtucture is fully mature and powerful enough to handle the problem, and is long overdue to supplant the voodoo algorithms of orthodox economic theory. -Pete Vincent
More on LINUX
* FORWARDED MESSAGE * Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 15:03:26 -0500 Reply-To: zimmerer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sender: The Other Economic Summit USA 1997 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: zimmerer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Microsoft, COMDEX & LINUX To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] While lawyers play word games in the Microsoft Monopoly Trial, activity in the Software Commons has produced a computer operating system called LINUX, a public alternative to privately owned UNIX and Microsoft Windows NT in which the source code is freely available to everyone and its use and development is ongoing and supported by programmers worldwide. With a literally free computer operating system entrepreneurs are encouraged to design and develop applications for existing markets and to create new markets. While this new creative rush is taking place in industrial applications, my visit to COMDEX 98 reassures me that consumer applications will follow soon bringing fresh ideas to the PC market. COMDEX 98 report On Monday 16 November I joined the 120,000 or so people swarming into COMDEX, Las Vegas on opening day. My principle interest was LINUX, the fast growing alternative industrial computer operating system to UNIX and recently recognized by Microsoft as a possible threat to its "unregulated" monopoly. Last year I found only one LINUX distributor, this year COMDEX sported a LINUX "pavilion" (Mall) with five LINUX distributors and several software vendors. A leaked memo from Microsoft, the "Halloween Memo," and its rebuttal by MS was a topic of humor. The distributors were quite busy demonstrating LINUX capability. I talked at length with a German engineer demonstrating the S.u.S.E. LINUX package, very popular in Germany. While management remains skeptical of Open Source Software like LINUX because it can't sue a vendor over problems, it is widely accepted by the computer engineers who keep management's systems functioning. The enthusiasm of these young engineers and software gurus for LINUX and the informal support structure they have across the world is wonderful to behold. It reminds me of the early days - before Microsoft - when the microprocessor attracted talented people to pool their creativity to invent word processors and spread sheets and modem protocols, freely exchanging ideas and code as they explored this new technology and founded companies. I expect next year at COMDEX there will be consumer LINUX packages available to put on PCs available from independent young programers. Eric Raymond (The Cathedral and the Bazaar author) is surprised how much LINUX acceptance has grown in just six months. In other areas technology races onward with hardware getting faster, smaller, and cheaper. Vance Packard (The Waste Makers author) would smile at the sales pressure to buy the newest technology and discard the perfectly useful and adequate last year's model. Our economic system must be dysfunctional to require such unnecessary consumption of resources. Robert W. Zimmerer Sun City, AZ * END of FORWARDED MESSAGE *
Re: Views on Rifkin's theory?
Re-posting this as it seems not to have got through our 'fire-wall'. -- -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Views on Rifkin's theory? Date: Thursday, November 19, 1998 2:59PM Arthur Cordell wrote, >Technology is also labour empowering or enhancing. McCluhan said it expands >our reach. Viz., right now I am posting this message to a computer in >Waterloo, Ontario that is forwarding to about 500 or so other computers >around the world. >This is what helps to make it a 'transformative technology.' Tom responded How many of those 500 computers stay subscribed to futurework if it comes with an explicit price tag? And who pays whom? Do the lurkers pay the posters for the service or vice versa? The phrase 'transformative technology' suggests that the 'goods & services' produced by the technology don't fit the traditional definitions of economic value. How we can generate traditional jobs and incomes from transformative goods and services is a moot question. It's like asking how we can build a log cabin out of glass and steel. Arthur responds to Tom, The two stories below begin to tell the story of a changing economy, with lots of surprises, far better than I can at this moment. arthur THE SURPRISING SIDE OF THE "NEW ECONOMY" The highly touted "new economy" based on "information goods" and driven by the mighty microprocessor, might not turn out to be such a good deal for citizens of the future, says J. Bradford De Long. In predicting what the new economy is likely to bring, De Long warns that "the invisible hand of the market may do a much poorer job of arranging and controlling the economy when most of the value produced is in the form of information goods." Information goods are by nature not excludable (the owner cannot easily and cheaply keep others from using it without permission), not rival (a computer file is infinitely reproducible), and not transparent (purchasers wouldn't be paying for information if they already knew what it was). These factors will change the nature of the relationship between buyer and seller, making the transaction "much more that of a gift exchange: I give you something, and out of gratitude and reciprocity you give something back to me." De Long predicts that "in an information age economy the businesses that enjoy the most success will not be those that focus on making better products but those that strive to find ways to induce consumers to pay for what they use... Other companies will follow a different strategy. Rather than giving their product away in hopes of receiving payment in return, they will try to make money by suing everybody in sight... If the information age economy winds up looking much like the one sketched here, the role of government, far from shrinking into near irrelevance, as many of today's pilgrims airily assume, might grow in importance." The government would then be forced to expend enormous effort on creating support mechanisms that provide a semblence of market competition and restore the profitability of useful innovation, resulting in a "dark mirror image of the new economy we hear so much about today." (J. Bradford De Long, "What 'New' Economy?" Wilson Quarterly Autumn 98) http://wwics.si.edu/WQ PCs WANT TO BE FREE Internet-marketing guru Michael Tchong sees a future in which computers are free and soft-drink companies sponsor desktop software: "In five years, most PCs will be given away. It's going to be the perfect way to serve ads in a targeted fashion." Tchong predicts that major corporations will be willing to subsidize the cost of computers as a tradeoff for capturing the attention of the wired generation. The desktop will soon be targeted as prime advertising space with companies like Coca Cola or Pepsi willing to sponsor an office software suite, for instance. Right now, says Tchong, two-thirds of advertisers still don't believe the Net is worth the trouble, but as Internet users increasingly turn away from TV as an entertainment medium, advertisers will realize that they must try alternative methods to reach this all-important audience. Key to the shift will be increased use of streaming media, turning the Web into an effective sales tool. Only about 1%, or 34,000, of the total number of commercial Web sites currently use streaming technology, but by 2003, Tchong predicts that number will jump to 10% or 15%. And, he adds, unlike television, the Web provides an immediate mechanism for closing the sale. (TechWeb 11 Nov 98) http://www.techweb.com/ =
Re: Views on Rifkin's theory?
I would agree with Brad De Long (cited in Arthur's post) with the one reservation that the changes he's talking about have been already happening for 30 years and, as James Galbraith argues in _Created Unequal_, they've been driven not by the nature of the technology but by government policy. Michael Tchong's vision, though, is anachronistic. If this was 1948 instead of 1998 and he was talking about the TV instead of the PC, he'd be about half right. The advertisers paid for the programming, but the audience bought the sets. Where Tchong's analogy breaks down is that TV and TV advertising rode in on a wave of consumption growth that wasn't intrinsic to the technology. There was tremendous pent-up demand in North America for consumer goods and savings from the war, tremendous demand and little competition for U.S. exports of capital goods (due to destruction of industrial plant and equipment in Europe and Japan), and government policies aimed at forestalling a return to depression. Attributing the post-war boom to TV would be like attributing Marilyn Monroe's sex appeal to her brand of mascara. Sure, it's done all the time in advertising, but does anybody believe it? Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: FW - more on the underlying combinatorial reasons for unemployment
Douglas P. Wilson wrote, >Most technical people are uncomfortable >with discussing "soft" issues like the way society works, while most >people who know something about social problem are uncomfortable with >the math. C.P.Snow's two cultures. Don't forget, Doug, that each of us who does understand both the technical and social matters is a universe unto him/herself. Surely one element of finding a job one wants is being able to work as much or as little as one wants. The work hours distribution problem is much, much simpler than the combinatorial problem of job/person matching you raise. I developed a nifty spreadsheet that estimates the labour costs for different combinations of hours of work and numbers of employees. After two years of peddling my device, I'm no longer surprised that folks in the labour market industry aren't buying, but what does intrigue me is the occasional flare-ups of overt hostility and recrimination. >From an incrementalist perspective, the tolerablization problem has to take precedence over the optimization problem. Before we can ask the question about optimal solutions, we have to ask why government policies over the past 30 years have moved away from non-optimal -- but comparatively tolerable -- solutions toward more pessimal solutions. There used to be a somewhat effective non-mathematical tool for improving the person/job match. It was called quitting. In the immortal words of Johnny Paycheck: "Take this job and shove it!" Then it entered the small and shriveled minds of the coupon clippers that workers were asking for too much and needed to be 'disciplined' with the lash of unemployment. The theory of the "non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment" (NAIRU) was hoisted up the flag pole to provide an intellectual fig leaf for high interest rate policies (mixed metaphor intended). Those policies' manifest purpose was to put people out of work and elevate the formula for compound interest to a Law of Nature. The formula for compound interest is a mathematical formula that expresses exponential growth at a specified rate. It has nothing to do with the distribution of human abilities or needs or with the amount of natural resources available in the world. Compound interest is an intellectual, ethical and practical non-sequitur. No combinatorial solution of the job matching problem can meet the a priori condition that it uphold the regime of compound interest ad infinitum. I'm not referring to something that it would take a zillion pentiums to calculate but to a basic axiom of mathematics: division by zero is meaningless. Wouldn't it be easier to just say, "Take this NAIRU and shove it!"? Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
"at least five to ten additional planets" would be needed
From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Oh, well, I'll try again. Here goes: -- The first line on my home >page says "Imagine a future world in which it is easy to find a good >job." Perhaps it would have captured my intentions better if it had >said "Imagine a future world in which it is easy FOR EVERYONE to find >a good job." Talk about the two cultures! My first reaction would be that you are from a different planet -- the abstraction planet. This particular planet -- Earth -- already has too many people working. Until people incorporate biophysical laws into their world views, their prescriptions are meaningless. This planet is already over carrying capacity. --- Revisiting Carrying Capacity: Area-Based Indicators of Sustainability by William E. Rees http://dieoff.com/page110.htm [snip] Let us examine this prospect using ecological footprint analysis. If just the present world population of 5.8 billion people were to live at current North American ecological standards (say 4.5 ha/person), a reasonable first approximation of the total productive land requirement would be 26 billion ha (assuming present technology). However, there are only just over 13 billion ha of land on Earth, of which only 8.8 billion are ecologically productive cropland, pasture, or forest (1.5 ha/person). In short, we would need an additional two planet Earths to accommodate the increased ecological load of people alive today. If the population were to stabilize at between 10 and 11 billion sometime in the next century, five additional Earths would be needed, all else being equal -- and this just to maintain the present rate of ecological decline (Rees & Wackernagel, 1994). While this may seem to be an astonishing result, empirical evidence suggests that five phantom planets is, in fact, a considerable underestimate (keep in mind that our footprint estimates are conservative). Global and regional-scale ecological change in the form of atmospheric change, ozone depletion, soil loss, ground water depletion, deforestation, fisheries collapse, loss of biodiversity, etc., is accelerating. This is direct evidence that aggregate consumption exceeds natural income in certain critical categories and that the carrying capacity of this one Earth is being steadily eroded. [We should remember Liebigs "Law of the Minimum" in this context. The productivity and ultimately the survival of any complex system dependent on numerous essential inputs or sinks is limited by that single variable in least supply.] In short, the ecological footprint of the present world population/ economy already exceeds the total productive area (or ecological space) available on Earth. This situation is, of course, largely attributable to consumption by that wealthy quarter of the world's population who use 75% of global resources. The WCED's "five- to ten-fold increase in industrial output" was deemed necessary to address this obvious inequity while accommodating a much larger population. However, since the world is already ecologically full, sustainable growth on this scale using present technology would require at [least] five to ten additional planets. [snip] Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
FW - more on the underlying combinatorial reasons for unemployment
My thanks to Eva Durant, Victor Milne, and Steve Kurtz for your comments on my long message about combinatorial optimization and employment. Unfortunately your comments make it clear to me that once again I've failed to convey my message. I seem to be talking to an almost non-existant audience, the group of people who both understand technical or mathematical matters AND who can think clearly about society and how it works. Most technical people are uncomfortable with discussing "soft" issues like the way society works, while most people who know something about social problem are uncomfortable with the math. C.P.Snow's two cultures. Oh, well, I'll try again. Here goes: -- The first line on my home page says "Imagine a future world in which it is easy to find a good job." Perhaps it would have captured my intentions better if it had said "Imagine a future world in which it is easy FOR EVERYONE to find a good job." In a previous message I quoted J.A. Campbell, from a technical book on computing: "the central problem in computer science [is] minimizing or avoiding the effects of the combinatorial explosions of possible paths in a search space." Then I suggested that is also the central problem in in labour and employment, and throughout the rest of society, wherever matching occurs. To me this is an utterly fundamental problem, not unrelated to the laws of thermodynamics, and must be addressed head-on, to be even approximately solved. But how to deal with it? A first step is to quantify the problem, to provide some sort of scale for measuring or describing the combinatorial problem. I don't know if any of you have looked at my page about a scale for rating compatibility, http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/scale.html but when I talk about compatibility on that page I mean it to include compatible (or suitable, or appropriate) jobs, not just compatibilities between people. That scale is based on the idea of a virtual search-space, and I assign the base-10 logarithm of the size of that virtual space as a measure of compatibility or suitability. The key part of this is the idea that we can provide tools -- social technology -- that can allow people to find the best 1-in-a-million person or job without the need to actually meet a million persons or apply for a million jobs. Part of what I've written about but not posted yet is the way this scale can also be used to estimate the difficulty of finding jobs for people with very few skills, or those with some mental or physical handicaps. For an entirely normal, healthy, and well-adjusted person with perhaps a high-school education, and a few minor skills, a 1-in-a-thousand match may be good enough, but for others a better match may be necessary. An illiterate unskilled person, or a handicapped person, might need a job which is a 1-in-a-million (level 6) match to their few abilities and interests, in order to do the work and be happy at it, whereas a normal (etc.) person might only need a 1-in-a-thousand (level 3) match. But we should have matching technology that can satisfy the needs of both, and it should be freely available and easy to use. I had a couple of responses from people who still think there is a shortage of jobs, which would make my plan unworkable. I disagree. Please let me spell out my plan in more detail. First, and most important, don't focus only on the unemployed. As I repeatedly say, unemployment is only the tip of the iceberg, the real problem is the mismatch between people and jobs. There's an old joke which goes: Q: "How many people work for your company?" A: "Oh, about 20 percent of them." That's hilariously true: most businesses have a few employees who really do their best, and a lot who just put in time. But I don't blame the ones who just do the minimum, or say they are just lazy, instead I blame the system which has led them to a job they are not really suited for. If these employees seem to have an attitude problem, it is probably because a job or workplace environment they hate has made them embittered and robbed them of motivation. I'm convinced that each and every person could be a model employee in the right job, and in the right work environment, which means with the right co-workers. But most people never get anywhere near the right job. So, one component of a real solution could be a job-matching system, which would probably be a computerized system, but instead of just trying to match the unemployed with job-openings, it should work with the whole of the workforce, trying to get people out of jobs they are not suited for and into ones that they would excel at. A more serious and difficult problem than matching people to jobs is matching people with co-workers. I say that working with a few people you like and work well with is a pleasure, no matter what the job is, and the ideal job would be horrible if it involved working with people you don't like o
