This topic came up in another thread and I thought it might be a good idea for a thread on the issue of advancing technology and its related socioeconomic effects. Marx had some thoughts on technology, which are very prophetic considering his times. Couple snips from Marx’s The Fragment on Machines (link to full text):

Labor in the proper sense, serves only within production and for production, and has no other use value. But, once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery (system of machinery: the automatic one is merely its most complete, most adequate form, and alone transforms machinery into a system), set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself; this automaton consisting of numerous mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages.

The saving of labour time is equal to an increase of free time, i.e. time for the full development of the individual….

So to the concerns about robots taking our jobs, Marx ‘s response is basically, duh, that’s what we built them to do, i.e., to reduce our labor time and increase our free time.

Yes but the other side of the equation is what happens to the people and our systems of government.

Free time because all the work is done by robots cannot equate to no wealth for the many because there's no demand for their labour. Somehow all the wealth created without labour has to be redistributed

If we don't like Marx's solution then we better come up with a different one (and fast)

Best I can come up with the lowest opportunity cost and a good chance to get pushed through is to raise min. wage by $1.00-2.00/yr. in perpetuity.

If I'm understanding you properly, then I agree with Marx to the extent that the point is that there's nothing inherently bad about automation.

But, it seems like it's relevant primarily because r > g?

Presumably automation is contributing to the trend towards rates of return on capital increasing faster than labor income. So to me it mostly becomes an argument for more redistribution or other policies aimed at mitigating that trend.

That wont help the people who have no demand for their labour. Which will increasingly be everyone.

I'll all for high minimum wages for other reasons but in this regard it only helps the rise of the robots by making automation more attractive.

That – forcing businesses to automate labor used in the production of goods - is primary advantage with that approach over others because doing so creates a demand for robots which creates a demand for the making, maintenance and supervision of them. Compare that to transferring income from high to low wage earners—if we just subsidize low incomes business has no incentive to automate.

[ibid] Hence, only when a certain degree of productivity has already been reached – so that a part of production time is sufficient for immediate production – can an increasingly large part be applied to the production of the means of production.

So the idea is to transition employment away from the immediate production of goods (a human widget assembler) to the means of the production of widgets (a robotic widget assembler) in effect shifting employment to the making, maintenance and supervision of the robotic widget assemblers. Then, as we reach a point where robots are making and maintaining robots, employment shifts to its final stage:

Labour no longer appears so much to be included within the production process; rather, the human being comes to relate more as watchman and regulator to the production process itself.

He said as much:

Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth. Capital thus works towards its own dissolution as the form dominating production.

The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools.

Which is why I said, "the best... raise min. wage by $1.00-2.00/yr. in perpetuity."

Nice concept: The robot as "deus ex machina". The robot does the work while humans enjoy their free time. This didn't work in the industrial revolution, because the machines belonged to the capitalists. To make it work, they must belong to the (former) workers.

So basically for every baby a robot has to be born as well. I have my doubts, but it certainly makes a nice science fiction story.

Note: In virtually every science fiction the heroes are soldiers, because it's their duty to complete a task, which civilians don't have. The science fiction of civilians would be hanging out with their homies all day long having fun, but obviously nobody would want to read about this.

Sure it did. If it didn't our living standards would still be at pre industrial revolution levels. What happened - that a lot of political economists predicted would not happen - is that instead of keeping living standards at those levels while only needing to work a few hours a week, people decided to exchange that "free time" for more work so they could enjoy even higher living standards.

Are we talking about the same industrial revolution? I meant the one that led to millions of people losing their jobs ending up in mass poverty. I meant the one where the word "sabotage" came from throwing a wooden shoe in a machine in order to break it. Our living standards of today are based upon the conclusions that people were forced to draw after their whole world broke down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indust...Social_effects
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabot_(shoe)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_i...rms_for_change

Here comes the big difference: Back then it was possible to move from a job in agriculture to a job in the industry. The idea of replacing humans with robots makes this impossible. This time there will be no escape.

https://www.y*utube.com/watch?v=Yvs7f4UaKLo

That will be a problem for conservative thinkers. If the premise is changing, conclusions must change as well.

I can catch enough fish with my hands to feed us both. I’ll feed you while you gather the materials and make a fishing net. Now we can feed ourselves in a fraction of the time, which frees up our time to come up with even more productivity tools to save even more time feeding ourselves. Rinse and repeat until we’re building robots to do all the work, and then robots that build robots…. until finally we just need to push the 'fish dinner' button and a drone delivers it.

I don't want to escape that.

Well, you are assuming that you will have access to a drone.

A lot of people worry that given current rates of resource accumulation in the hands of the few, without some course correction a large % of people will not have such access.

Marx was so prophetic that he came up with an ideology that was going to create multiple genocides and stifle progress to the point of starving populations so humanity wouldn't advance to the point they have to encounter the issue of automation

High level stuff

Part of me thinks we will adapt better than alarmists think. People will find a different path than driving and operating machines. But then you have to realize this is different. It's getting to the point where too many low IQ jobs are being automated. You can't just turn truck drivers in to coders or marketing execs. It looks like there's going to be substantially more jobs automated than the number of people capable of being productive at more complex tasks.

By what means is it determined how much free fish you get?

Access to the accumulated resources is effectively access to the “fish dinner” button. But I think that needs to be factored through Marx’s point:

Capitalism thus works towards its own dissolution as the form dominating production.

My take on what he’s getting at is that those accumulated resources, while they may seem extremely valuable to us today, won’t be worth much if anything in the future once they reach the stage of self-replication.

Well I’m not a Marxist, nor am I peddling it. But I do think he has some valid points in regard to the way capitalism plays out especially when ever advancing technology is factored into the equation. Namely, that technology works to devalue what Marx terms immediate labor. You seem to agree with that as well.
We’ll see but I doubt it. People seem to adapt well enough and acquire advancing skills given an environment conducive for doing so.

How hungry for fish you happen to be. However, I guess we could run into a problem if masque appropriates all the fish in the sea for some inter-galactic project he's working on, though.

This will be as much of a political questions as it is right now, jobs or no jobs. Currently, though, many people just don't think of it as a political question, they think the iron law of the market dictates it, even though politics is behind it.

Free everything for everyone on demand! Sign me up!

Jesus, this is a boring topic. There have been so many instances of everyone knowing that everyone except the machine makers were going to be broke when the machines came for the jobs.

There are 4-5 million U.S. households with a net worth over $2M. For argument’s sake suppose they’re all living modestly and earning 5% interest on their wealth. For all intents they can say “Alexa, order fish dinner,” the funds will move around, and they’ll get their fish dinner without exerting any more effort or work or labor, or diminishing more of their wealth than that. So one option to make that feat available to everyone is to get everyone’s net worth up to $2M. But there’s another way: make all the production and means of production worth less or near worthless to the extent that the human effort that went into catching, preparing and delivering the fish is equal to the human effort required to tell Alexa to order it.

Free everything for these people?

Of course.

I consider that the world is a better place with dreamers than without so carry on.

Look at it slightly differently though. if Marx had said that we either address the problem of wealth distribution as labour becomes increasingly valueless or democracy dies - probably with plenty of blood.

Then he would have been spot on wouldn't he?