On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Nigel Dyer <l...@thedyers.org.uk> wrote:
I am not sure that it will go anything like as far as you believe Jed, but > some elements are already present. The first twenty years of my working > life were spent automating the production of telephone exchange equipment, > which resulted in many 1000s of people who used to work on the production > lines being made redundant. Many of them still do not have jobs, and the > area is now one of the most deprived areas in the UK. A small number of > people (such as myself) were paid a lot more to do the continuing design > work, until we were made redundant when the production and design was moved > to China. > So yes we need a new economic system to distribute the wealth in a > workable way as people like me continue to make millions of people > redundant, or maybe people would prefer to be in work, even if it is > digging trenches, rather than sitting at home watching daytime TV. We must add some context to your account. While you were working hard, the effects of which were to put in place a new technology that ended up making thousands of people redundant, there was a captain of industry who was working harder and more cleverly than you, directing the show and making sure that you and others of your kind were on the straight path. Because of the benefit that his brilliance brought to society in the form of increased productivity, despite all of the layoffs and the attendant economic stagnation in your area that followed upon his decisions, he was no doubt compensated manyfold what you were paid. In the UK, the government no doubt recouped some of the money that were required for the police force and the fire department and so on, which were essential to making this endeavor possible. In the US, this additional dimension of the question is largely elided, and the executive is understood to have achieved all that has been accomplished by the sweat of his own brow, thereby richly earning the fruits of this remarkable redistribution of wealth from the many thousands that were laid off to him and the shareholders of the company. Eric
