I wrote:
We will have to find a way to give everyone what they need and want
with a new kind of economy. Not communism, socialism or capitalism.
All three are ways of allocating human labor, and they would be
equally unworkable in a world where human labor is useless.
I did not mean to suggest that communism, socialism and capitalism
are equally good, or equally effective, or that these are the only
economic systems ever invented. They are the main three still
surviving in the modern world. They are mostly in mixed
configurations depending on market sector; i.e., Japan is mostly
big-corporate capitalist but their healthcare sector is socialist.
Someone in the New York Times wrote a letter in response to this
column, about unemployment:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10herbert.html>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10herbert.html
The letter says what I had in mind. It is well written. QUOTE:
. . . There was a time in the early years of this country in which
90% of employed people worked on farms. An economy that did not have
agriculture as the main source of livelihood was beyond imagining. . . .
Our world is increasingly becoming one in which more and more jobs do
not really require people at all. Productivity per worker is not a
function of expertise, which is at an all-time low. Rather, it is the
product of the automation of the workplace and of the tools at hand.
This process could be much farther along than it is, but people are
still somewhat cheaper than new technology. That will not remain the
state of the workplace much longer.
It is becoming increasingly necessary envision how an economy would
work in which every job could be performed without humans at all. Who
would own the means of production? How would people acquire
purchasing power? Would these concepts even be relevant? Author John
Varley described such an economy on the moon in "Steel Beach."
Further exploration is definitely in order.
We are taking the first baby steps into an economic landscape in
which workers are increasingly superfluous. As Artificial
Intelligence becomes a viable alternative, that phenomenon will
spread into management. How to make such a world habitable for the
average citizen is an intellectual challenge of the highest order,
and urgency. . . .
- Jed
