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Musings Report 2019-9 3-2-19 How Do We Provide Security and Work as the Economy Is Transformed?
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
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How Do We Provide Security and Work as the Economy Is Transformed?
I was struck by this article from the MIT Technology Review because it aligns so closely with my own views on the non-financial value of work, and on the profound disruption of technology to the stability of the economy and the world of work.
Why robots helped Donald Trump win: Toledo has more robots per worker than any other US city. They’re producing a healthy economy—and lots of anxiety.
"This is what Silicon Valley promoters of salves like universal basic income fail to understand. The engineers and programmers of the new machines seem to think they can buy off the displaced with a promise of cash. But many people don’t work for money, not really. They need the money, and they want the money, but money alone isn’t why anybody worked 40 years in the Cove. They stood on the line and welded or painted or bolted because they were auto workers in a country in which what you do is who you are, just as Shrewsbery is the Robot Doctor. They could look at a Wrangler, or a glass windshield, or a Whirlpool washer, and say “I made that.”
Probably nobody voted for Trump just because of technology. But when people feel powerless, they’ll gravitate toward any object, person, or belief they think might return some autonomy to them, or help them preserve what they fear they’re losing.
“Nothing’s permanent,” Rickey told me. “We’re in a transitional stage, and it scares me.”
The issues of meaningful work, positive social roles and financial security are the heart of my books Money and Work Unchained and A Radically Beneficial World. Many other people are pondering the same issues, and as a result we're hearing proposals to guarantee jobs as part of the Green New Deal.
This is a welcome advance from the calls for Universal Basic Income (UBI), which provides minimal income security but little to nothing in the way of guaranteed work or positive social roles.
Most people's reactions to the Green New Deal and government-guaranteed jobs cleave neatly along ideological lines: those with socialist leanings find these proposals commonsensical and practical, while those leaning toward free-market values see them as unaffordable and prone to the failures of central planning.
As long-time readers know, I see fatal flaws in both models:
1) A great deal of work is needed and valuable but it isn't profitable, and in many cases is intrinsically unprofitable, so a profit-driven private sector necessarily leaves all those needs unaddressed.
2) Centralization of power and capital creates an irresistible attractor for individuals and groups to gain influence over the centralized distribution of control and funding. What local communities actually need cannot possibly register in a centralized bureaucracy dominated by powerful cliques and cartels. It's the wrong structure and unit size to serve the vast diversity of living, real-world communities.
In other words, neither ideology is the solution that adherents believe, not as a result of abstract ideology but as a result of structural weaknesses.
The only solution that avoids these intrinsic weaknesses and is sustainable is a self-funding, self-organizing network that provides guaranteed jobs in service of the local community's most pressing needs. These needs are of course dynamic, which demands a highly flexible, adaptive network and managerial structure.
My proposed solution is for a decentralized, localized, self-funding, self-organizing, direct-democracy network of community groups (the CLIME system) whose sole goal is to fill their local community's most pressing needs.
Such a structure sits between public and private sectors and can work with one or both, or function productively as an organization that's independent of the state and outside markets.
Being agnostic ideologically is a great benefit, as sometimes public ownership and management of assets makes excellent practical sense (for example, ownership of local water resources and distribution systems), while in others, highly regulated private-sector utilities make sense, and in still others, private-sector competition provides the most cost-effective and innovative option.
In keeping with my theme this year of applying the principles of evolution to social and economic problems, it's clear that a diversity of options is far more conducive to meeting the needs of a very diverse set of communities than a centralized, central-planning bureaucracy funded by ballooning debt or a neofeudal system of self-serving private-sector cartels.
Highlights of the Blog This Past Week
It's All About Who Reaps the Gains (Asset Bubbles) and Who Eats the Losses (Stagnating Wages) 3/1/19
The Doomsday Scenario for the Stock and Housing Bubbles 2/27/19
Now that Housing Bubble #2 Is Bursting...How Low Will It Go? 2/26/19
What's Been Lost: The Value of Being Reasonable 2/25/19
Food Diversity's Enormous Impact on Your Health 2/23/19
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
A business transaction was completed, to my great relief.
Musings on the Economy: One Chart Says It All
This chart from the Dallas News encapsulates the central problem with the US economy: costs are outstripping income. This particular chart is about healthcare costs, but charts of higher education, childcare, burritos and much else would look very similar.
From Left Field
Millions of Americans Flood Into Mexico for Health Care -- insulin for 1/3 the cost in the US....
Why Subsidizing Idleness Is a Losing Strategy for Everyone
America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable (via Adam T.)
How the Russiagate investigation is Sovietizing American politics
Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy (from 2014, nothing has changed)
The Green New Deal: How We Will Pay For It Isn't 'A Thing' - And Inflation Isn't Either -- the argument for borrowing trillions to pay for the Green New Deal...
The Backfire Effect (via Dave P.) -- why we cling so tightly to our beliefs as they're challenged...
Oscar in the Age of Entertainment Overload -- too many choices, easier to turn the whole thing off...
The Minsky Millennium
Debt Is Roaring Back in China -- but it no longer has any multiplier effect, it's simply adding cost and fragility...
If Central Banks Are the Only Game in Town, We’ve Lost: Relying on monetary policy to prop up asset prices and smooth out global volatility is a recipe for disaster
The End of Employees: Never before have big employers tried so hard to hand over chunks of their business to contractors. From Google to Wal-Mart, the strategy prunes costs for firms and job security for millions of workers
How America Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Deficits and Debt: The old rules are being rejected, among liberals and conservatives, politicians and economists.
"The world is changed by examples, not by opinions." Paulo Coelho
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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