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Post by greenchristian on Feb 23, 2016 22:26:37 GMT
Listening to various clever clogs on Radio 4 last night, I was once again persuaded that technology would render the masses unemployed. I should not fall for this, it has been predicted for decades without coming to fruition, but it is very persuasive.. The fact that something hasn't happened before doesn't imply that it can't or won't happen in the future. There is a difference in the types of jobs that are potentially at threat from automation in the future, compared to in the past - we are now able to automate at least some thinking jobs, whereas the jobs we used to automate were all manual tasks. That all depends on the decisions we make about our political and economic system. I suspect that this issue is the reason a number of places are currently trialling the idea of a citizen's income, which is one suggested solution to the problem. I have to say that it's odd to see you advocating a rather strong socialist system in the event that we do see that level of mass unemployment. |
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slon
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Post by slon on Mar 7, 2016 15:52:07 GMT
Heading towards the Stolper–Samuelson theorem with the obvious corollary that allowing the worst to happen but providing bribes to the worst affected will still leave everyone better off?
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Post by Guest on Mar 7, 2016 22:31:56 GMT
There are any number of people now who work harder than they did. The City worker 50 years ago had a secretary to do the typing, and a wife to make him bacon and eggs, caught the 8.09 into the City and the 5.09 back to warm slippers and dinner. Now many City workers are at their desks at 7am and there til late evening, grabbing a coffee at the station and dozing off on the late train home. At the weekend the boss can be in touch via the Blackberry if 'something crops up' as it always does. Many are expected to work as unpaid interns in university holidays before they can even achieve payment for this crap.
The most obvious manifestation of this that I can see is people paying exorbitant rents to live half a mile from the City (in preference to commuting from the suburbs) - then catching a bus in anyway (which is already full and sweaty) rather than walk because they are cash rich and time poor.
Much of this is because of technology - allowing us to be perpetually in touch with Shanghai and New York - not despite it.
I realise this isn't typical and there won't be so many tears shed for The Masters of The Universe.
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Post by manchesterman on Mar 7, 2016 23:56:35 GMT
I remember back in my teens watching an episode of "Tomorrow's World" (for those old eonough to remember it!) in about 1982 which predicted (with a fair degree of certainty) that by the end of the millenium the average employee would work at most 20 hours a week as many of the mundane jobs would be done by automated means..but that we shouldnt worry because society would organise itself in such a way that there would be some sort of job-share system for those non-automated jobs, so that everyone still had a salary and moreover they would get paid more or less a full weeks wage for a part-time working week and even moreover that we would all be able to happily fritter away all that extra "leisure time" doing all sorts of wonderful things and having a great life....
Yeah, even as I naive teenager at the time I thought "what a load of horseshit". Now some 34 years on we are all still working at least as long as we did back then, if not longer! The few "mundane" jobs that have been automated has just lead to redundancies and "hello scrapheap" for those unfortunate enough to have work in those trades, no nice pink, fluffy future for those poor sods. Utopian dream or dystopian nightmare?
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slon
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Post by slon on Mar 8, 2016 9:10:29 GMT
It has sort of happened, just that instead of everyone working 20 hours it turns out some carry on working full time and some have no jobs at all.
The loss of jobs has been part due to technology, like dockers, warehousing, some production jobs, and part due to globalisation where jobs have moved abroad.
Overall however UK wealth has increased so the country can bribe non-workers, or create new non-jobs.
Best option is to encourage new enterprises, but how do you do that?
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carlton43
Reform Party
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 8, 2016 10:41:15 GMT
No. There will always be jobs in the service industries. IT, Entertainment, Catering/Hotels/Bars, Arts, Education, Sports, 'Personal' Services are all growing fast and other things will soon follow. There could be a movement back to simplicity, the soil, self containment, etc? We could go back to millions 'In Service'? there will always be work and a proportion of shirkers.
The concept of the The Citizen's Income is absolute anathema to me. I would be prepared to kill to stop it I dislike it so much. Something for nothing (except being pissing alive!) is the primrose path to degradation and demise already incipient in our society because there are far, far too many benefits and not enough (actually NO) duties on the citizen.
Nature will rid us of the problem with inventive new diseases and the self-inflicted trauma of human carelessness, smoking, alcohol, obesity, recreational drug use and increased suicide caused by vacuous life-style and morbid self obsession.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
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Post by J.G.Harston on Mar 8, 2016 13:05:58 GMT
The concept of the The Citizen's Income is absolute anathema to me. I would be prepared to kill to stop it I dislike it so much. Something for nothing (except being pissing alive!) Presumably you will also kill to get rid of the state old age pension. Something for nothing (except being pissing alive and over a certain age!). No, don't go on about working life, and contributions, and National Insurance payments. You get a UK state pension because you are alive and over the qualification age, no more and no less. You can have been unemployed every day of your pre-pension life and still receive it. For future recipients the amount paid is even being explicitly de-linked from any connection to National Insurance payments. |
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carlton43
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 8, 2016 13:11:48 GMT
The concept of the The Citizen's Income is absolute anathema to me. I would be prepared to kill to stop it I dislike it so much. Something for nothing (except being pissing alive!) Presumably you will also kill to get rid of the state old age pension. Something for nothing (except being pissing alive and over a certain age!). No, don't go on about working life, and contributions, and National Insurance payments. You get a UK state pension because you are alive and over the qualification age, no more and no less. You can have been unemployed every day of your pre-pension life and still receive it. For future recipients the amount paid is even being explicitly de-linked from any connection to National Insurance payments. You can be a grossly irritating little twerp............................Most of the time. Grow up or shut up. |
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cibwr
Plaid Cymru
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Post by cibwr on Mar 8, 2016 17:55:23 GMT
I thinks that means you just lost the argument.
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Post by johnloony on Apr 23, 2020 13:12:37 GMT
Listening to various clever clogs on Radio 4 last night, I was once again persuaded that technology would render the masses unemployed. I should not fall for this, it has been predicted for decades without coming to fruition, but it is very persuasive.. lets assume it sort of happens. Do we then have a workless class, maybe 40-60% of those of working age and health, who are unemployed? If so, are they cast onto the scrapheap by the free market, or do they exercise their electoral muscle and demand their citizens wages for not rioting? Or , my own preference, does the state become the employer of last resort and employ a legion of park keepers, playground supervisors, bus conductors, supermarket greeters, toilet attendants and sundry jobs-worthies? It'll pay millions of useless people to do nothing and order them to stay at home not working |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,778
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Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 23, 2020 15:17:55 GMT
Listening to various clever clogs on Radio 4 last night, I was once again persuaded that technology would render the masses unemployed. I should not fall for this, it has been predicted for decades without coming to fruition, but it is very persuasive.. lets assume it sort of happens. Do we then have a workless class, maybe 40-60% of those of working age and health, who are unemployed? If so, are they cast onto the scrapheap by the free market, or do they exercise their electoral muscle and demand their citizens wages for not rioting? Or , my own preference, does the state become the employer of last resort and employ a legion of park keepers, playground supervisors, bus conductors, supermarket greeters, toilet attendants and sundry jobs-worthies? It'll pay millions of useless people to do nothing and order them to stay at home not working Another thought is that it will complete upheave the economics of migration. When my ex-wife's family smuggled themselves into Hong Kong her father knew that he could just walk onto a building site or into a textile factory and do any sort of labouring going and save up and get the skills and contacts to move up the value chain, until after about five years he bought a shop, which he worked in for the next 30-odd years, which thrived and expanded and paid enough to pay school fees for the kids to get more than very basic elementary education. (This was John Cowperthwaite's "night watchman state" Hong Kong, no free state education matey.) If technology "takes all the jobs!" then what is the point of clambering over the fence or paddling over the sea to just end up with no paid work accessible? And not being a citizen you wouldn't be eligible for a citizen's income. And any state stupid enough to instutute a universal income *not* based on citizenship is budgeting to feed seven billion mouths. |
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Post by Andrew_S on Apr 23, 2020 16:39:16 GMT
Listening to various clever clogs on Radio 4 last night, I was once again persuaded that technology would render the masses unemployed. I should not fall for this, it has been predicted for decades without coming to fruition, but it is very persuasive.. lets assume it sort of happens. Do we then have a workless class, maybe 40-60% of those of working age and health, who are unemployed? If so, are they cast onto the scrapheap by the free market, or do they exercise their electoral muscle and demand their citizens wages for not rioting? Or , my own preference, does the state become the employer of last resort and employ a legion of park keepers, playground supervisors, bus conductors, supermarket greeters, toilet attendants and sundry jobs-worthies? The question for me is this: why would a society usher in a policy which makes so many of its own people unemployed? Isn't that a definition of madness? |
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Post by Merseymike on Apr 24, 2020 6:59:21 GMT
Listening to various clever clogs on Radio 4 last night, I was once again persuaded that technology would render the masses unemployed. I should not fall for this, it has been predicted for decades without coming to fruition, but it is very persuasive.. lets assume it sort of happens. Do we then have a workless class, maybe 40-60% of those of working age and health, who are unemployed? If so, are they cast onto the scrapheap by the free market, or do they exercise their electoral muscle and demand their citizens wages for not rioting? Or , my own preference, does the state become the employer of last resort and employ a legion of park keepers, playground supervisors, bus conductors, supermarket greeters, toilet attendants and sundry jobs-worthies? The question for me is this: why would a society usher in a policy which makes so many of its own people unemployed? Isn't that a definition of madness? Well, unless it is accompanied by population control measures, although that is one of those unmentionable issues.... |
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hengo
Conservative
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Post by hengo on Apr 24, 2020 7:53:48 GMT
My impression is that we have seen a gradual reintroduction of an expectation of domestic service by quite a broad section of society. I was struck by an article in the Times the other day by some female describing the effect on her household of doing without their cleaner during the lockdown. It was intended to be the customary light hearted mockery of the male in that she described her husbands excitement from the purchase of a steam cleaner, which being a gadget, naturally appealed to his childlike masculine fascination with a new toy. So that he did some work for once. What struck me was her assumption that her readership would share her dilemma . She normally employed her cleaner for 20 hours a week. 20 hours. And without that 20 hours of labour the house was gradually becoming more and more grubby. She clearly had little more expectation of doing any domestic work herself than her great grandmother might have had with two or three live in servants (given all the advances in technology I imagine the 20 hours would be pretty much an equivalent). Now I may be mistaken, but my impression is that typically, half a generation ago, a working professional couple might indeed employ a cleaner for a couple of mornings a week- say 8 hours or so. That was true of ourselves certainly. But I think this has now expanded significantly, and will I assume go on expanding. We won’t return to having housemaids , scullery maids etc. But we are gradually returning to an expectation among a much larger class of people than those who did employ such servants, that they won’t themselves be doing much in the way of tedious domestic work .
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Post by yellowperil on Apr 24, 2020 8:47:19 GMT
My impression is that we have seen a gradual reintroduction of an expectation of domestic service by quite a broad section of society. I was struck by an article in the Times the other day by some female describing the effect on her household of doing without their cleaner during the lockdown. It was intended to be the customary light hearted mockery of the male in that she described her husbands excitement from the purchase of a steam cleaner, which being a gadget, naturally appealed to his childlike masculine fascination with a new toy. So that he did some work for once. What struck me was her assumption that her readership would share her dilemma . She normally employed her cleaner for 20 hours a week. 20 hours. And without that 20 hours of labour the house was gradually becoming more and more grubby. She clearly had little more expectation of doing any domestic work herself than her great grandmother might have had with two or three live in servants (given all the advances in technology I imagine the 20 hours would be pretty much an equivalent). Now I may be mistaken, but my impression is that typically, half a generation ago, a working professional couple might indeed employ a cleaner for a couple of mornings a week- say 8 hours or so. That was true of ourselves certainly. But I think this has now expanded significantly, and will I assume go on expanding. We won’t return to having housemaids , scullery maids etc. But we are gradually returning to an expectation among a much larger class of people than those who did employ such servants, that they won’t themselves be doing much in the way of tedious domestic work . I find all that quite mind boggling, but perhaps I'm just the wrong generation to think of employing domestic servants. In our years as a couple both with demanding professional jobs and for much of the time also with councillor jobs, and earlier on with two children to bring up, we never for one moment thought of employing a cleaner. It is only now in our eighties, and with Eileen permanently bed ridden, we began to employ a cleaner for just two hours a week, more as a social contact as anything - half an hour of that two hours I used to make the cleaner a cup of tea and sit down with her and chat! Now of course the cleaner (who came from AgeUK) has been withdrawn and cleaning the house falls back entirely on me, but I hardly notice the difference, to be honest. And this is quite a big house- four big double bedrooms, two big bathrooms, for example. Just for the two of us, one of whom never leaves her bed. We do of course have carers coming in to see to Eileen's personal needs, because that does need two professionals each time, and these days we do also employ a gardener to do the heavy work outside, again just 2 hours a week, and that is able to continue through the lockdown. |
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 24, 2020 8:50:11 GMT
My impression is that we have seen a gradual reintroduction of an expectation of domestic service by quite a broad section of society. I was struck by an article in the Times the other day by some female describing the effect on her household of doing without their cleaner during the lockdown. It was intended to be the customary light hearted mockery of the male in that she described her husbands excitement from the purchase of a steam cleaner, which being a gadget, naturally appealed to his childlike masculine fascination with a new toy. So that he did some work for once. What struck me was her assumption that her readership would share her dilemma . She normally employed her cleaner for 20 hours a week. 20 hours. And without that 20 hours of labour the house was gradually becoming more and more grubby. She clearly had little more expectation of doing any domestic work herself than her great grandmother might have had with two or three live in servants (given all the advances in technology I imagine the 20 hours would be pretty much an equivalent). Now I may be mistaken, but my impression is that typically, half a generation ago, a working professional couple might indeed employ a cleaner for a couple of mornings a week- say 8 hours or so. That was true of ourselves certainly. But I think this has now expanded significantly, and will I assume go on expanding. We won’t return to having housemaids , scullery maids etc. But we are gradually returning to an expectation among a much larger class of people than those who did employ such servants, that they won’t themselves be doing much in the way of tedious domestic work .
If you mean by this we have a society in which there is a greater divide between 'haves' and ' have nots' then I would agree with you, and yes it looks like this trend is continuing.
As for people to do the cleaning, we've never had them, but then the lady in that article probably wouldn't consider our clean house clean and she'd probably say that we should get someone to sort it out properly.
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