Replies and remarks in red, below.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 9:59 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] consistency Arthur, A few comments on what you have written: At 11:37 26/02/2010 -0500, you wrote: My view is a function of things that I believe-- note I can't 'prove them' just believe them: 1. That western capitalist society has solved the production problem. By and large, yes. 2. That we have not solved the distribution problem. By and large, no -- as regards consumer goods. Even the poorest now possess, or has access to, goods that even royalty of less than a century ago could only dream of. Not only have goods become increasingly cheap but there's a second-hand market in almost everything. The real problem that's now looming is the cost of food -- directly related to the cost of nitrogenous fertilizer in turn directly related to the cost of fossil fuels.. Already one-third of the world's population don't eat enough, another third has an inadequate carbohydrate diet that's deficient in protein, and only a third are able to afford an adequate diet. The irony or paradox has been that the capitalists using markets solved the production problem (but not the distribution problem) while the communists solved (at least in theory) the distribution problem but not-with a command economy-- the production problem. Would be interesting to see how future economic historians deal with this. 3. That good jobs for the broad middle class are less to be found these days than in the past and will be less so in the future.(because of IT and globalisation) Agreed. And they're becoming increasingly boring jobs due to automation and computerization. But they'll still be a tranche of really interesting (and relatively highly-paid) jobs, and they'll still be restricting entry to them except to their own kind. 4. That effective demand has to be maintained if we are to avoid an economic meltdown. That's so under today's economic growth model. We have no other model to move to. We have created and continue to function with the financial model based on return on investment and interest rates. There are other possible models, movement toward a stable state economy but this will cause huge upheaval and will likely only be tried after we hit the resource and energy wall. But our modern gianticism has only been a product of finding such huge quantities of fossil fuel resources. Without this fortuitous circumstance our population wouldn't have been anywhere near what it is now, production then being limited to a trappable proportion of available sunlight and not a kilowatt-hour more. If we are to have an economic meltdown it will be due to energy shortages, not lack of effective demand. The latter is only a byroduct and can disappear fast if governments and upper classes allow the poor and uneducated to be neglected. And they'll have no problems doing this if necessary, social revolutions being motivated only by aspiring and well-fed classes, not starving ones. 5. That money will be found (from a bit tax, a tobin tax, some other form of turnover indirect tax) to provide a basic income, or to provide spending for some other type of workfare activivities in the third sector. In my view there's no chance of more money by any form of additional taxation, no matter how imaginatively conceived. The poor and the unemployed will be lucky to hang onto whatever welfare they're getting now. The costs of basics (a good education for children adequate for modern skills) are now so high that even those who are surviving will not allow more dispersal of their discretionary income for the sake of simply keeping others alive. The rich countries of this world only spend much less than 1% on aid to the undeveloped world. Why would the rich (that is, the middle and upper classes with adequate incomes) spend any more than they already do on their own poor? The latter can be disregarded in exactly the same way as the undeveloped world now is. Enlightened self interest will take over. To keep a semblance of stability govts will issue food stamps or other vouchers. 6. That governments will argue about debt this and deficit that but when the crunch comes, new money will be found. Maybe, but the only new money will be printed money and, if too much is printed, most with only a daily or weekly income will be pushing barrowloads of the stuff to buy a loaf of bread. Note that I originally sent this out over 10 years ago, before the financial meltdown. We have printed a lot of money to bail out the banks, etc. So there is less room to maneuver but some mix of inflation, price and wage controls, and yes even rationing are all tools that can be used. --- As suggested above, it is quite feasible to imagine a future society that's very different indeed from the present one, so long as it doesn't invalidate (or try to, as we are doing now) our deep genetic behaviours. Our present politicians are still mainly composed of lawyers -- products of a medieval, agricultural, religious age. Asking them to point the way forward is like asking a car mechanic to repair a computer. Our system is based on financial returns and a complex structure of interest rates. So it is hard to imagine a stable state society or one that is radically different unless we are forced into the transition. Keith _______________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
