I think we can think of the concept of robots as slaves (which is probably somewhat still socially uncomfortable) and there is a paradigm shift that leaves room for something like Marxism to change its nature or its role.

But to really hash it out you need to define freedom, because of course a robot as a slave sounds like a sad idea (For people that didn't get this point I mean that its really easy IF robots weren't sentiment , we can just control them and each go our own way for infinite resources in an infinite universe).

The word "work" needs disambiguation. If I'm working on my passion feverishly is that "work"? In the other sense of the idea of "work" its what we would do if we didn't have to provide labor for an entrepreneur that isn't ourselves But some are defining "work "in contrast to "leisure" which I think is a different thing...yet some might think that leisure and 'work for our own passions' are different things.

And how and who will decide what programable equilibrium is the correct one ?

I think only evolution can truly answer that ie test of time. But maybe one could discern far enough to be vaguely certain they have a stable and helpful implementation.

I guess to go along better with you we can also ask, if someone finds a stable implementation...is it their right to go ahead with it (they can't possibly KNOW its helpful perhaps). Especially if its security is based on propriety, or in other words especially if it always seems to win the popular vote and therefore never seems to die.

itt a bunch of people who know a small amount about economics and history confidently argue with a bunch of people who know less about them and argue even more confidently

the idea that 'the science is settled' that minimum wages reduce employment is an outright lie. that such ideas persist despite there being roundly zero evidence for them is to hark back to the 50s and 60s, when economic libertarians of the chicago school and in virginia largely captured the field of economics, imagining that the only axis along which employment and wages runs is supply and demand. They theorised that if rational humans treat their labour identically to goods, then the creation of a minimum price would warp the market and discourage employment. The problem is that the concept of dignity is totally ignored. That's the wrench in the system that prevents it from working the same. When study after study came out dispelling the idea that minimum wages reduce employment, the lesser known now but big in his day economist James Buchanan and his ilk (funded by the Koch network) loudly and angrily declared that you can't impinge on the theory of economics with facts, that economics is an entirely theoretical venture. And it worked, seeing as now we have people confidently stating that the 'science is settled'.

This is an example of a mode of conservative argument called 'the perversity thesis', closely related to the 'law of unintended consequences', both of which posit some level of 'by trying to fix the problem, you will actually make it worse' argument. See also: arguments against lockdowns and masks; arguments against mandatory bike helmet laws; hell, even seatbelt laws. 'The cure is worse than the disease' can sometimes be true, of course, but often, when the cure is attempting to right a wrong, and someone is going to lose some of their power, the disease isn't important in their eyes, so they will fight the cure with everything they have.

Recommended relevant reading: https://www.bostonreview.net/article...arlottesville/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Reaction

Arguments against lockdowns are what?

Arguments against lockdowns that took the form of 'the economic hit that will result from a lockdown will kill more people than it saves'.

I'm asking what you mean to say/point out about that subject. It wasn't clear to me.

Conservatives frequently make arguments that are in their own interests but not in the interests of 'the people', doing a switcheroo in a variety of forms. One of those forms is 'what you think will do good for you will actually do bad'. In this case, the rich and powerful were best served by the people continuing the economy as before, so they argued that lockdowns would kill more people than they saved because it would hurt the economy, and money = lives, therefore everything should stay open and everyone should keep on working.

Nobody with a lick of economic understanding is going to use blanket, discursive statement like that. It matters what state you live, the availability and the skill level of the jobs, the ease and the incentives to outsource, the competition, then need for tax revenue to increase paid govt programs like unemployment, calculating the positives and negatives of untaxed/under the table labor, changes in labor laws and working hrs, healthcare, creating future businesses and more jobs, its effects on the cost of living.

What changes to the system, and try to be specific, that focuses on the concept of dignity would lead to an overall improvement for workers and the entire world at large, iyo?

Ic. What about Hayek tho. Its a non touchy example of a steelman (as opposed to us speaking to conservative arguments we both would agree are dumb) counter to what you are saying.

Hayek explains that the prices of the markets are to be comprised of all of the individual information of the markets participants. That no central controller could ever have the knowledge of all of the participants. And that those prices are critical coordination signals for the markets.

The central authority sees certain prices that they determine are 'wrong', and then they mean to control them and make them right. Hayek argues such intervention only serves to distort those signals.

So there is a weird hypocrisy in regard to intervention for the good of the markets that I think you might not have been previously introduced to.

He also said this though:
So maybe he was contradicting himself here.

I don't know marx well, but language would matter here...if this were smith this would be a statement about overproduction. You can definitely overproduce even useful things, for example food that might spoil, or oil that can't be properly stored.

In regard to too many useless people, I think that refers to a social infrastructure problem. Would that happen in a robot world .... ie you don't have the resources/capital to hold society together but robots have replaced our labor?

Well a robot is a useful thing as is automation. It's just why I felt his comment to be a bit contrary as if too many robots were made, then rather than improve as an individual through new free time, a person would be useless instead.

I don't think my claims or statements eradicate nuance and the possibility for different factors in play to affect employment. It's entirely possible that introducing a minimum wage law, or increasing the minimum wage, can be accompanied by other circumstances changing or other policies being introduced that have an opposite effect, making it appear that the minimum wage increased unemployment. But as far as I understand it, and there is certainly lots of scope for me misunderstanding it, as I don't have any stamina for getting into the weeds when it comes to economics, the metastudies all show that neither introducing a minimum wage law nor increasing the minimum wage have ever led to an increase in unemployment. As a believer in steelmanning, however, I am keen to be proven wrong.

As to your question, unions, and laws preventing union-busting practices and policy. Lots of unions. Unions everywhere.

When you say 'raise minimum wage' do you mean nominally or real?

What do mean to do with wage prices (minimum) with respect to measured inflation?

I don't know how to poke holes in that logic, but what seems clear is that that logic presupposes that 'the good' is made up of efficiency and the markets performing at their peak. This serves to mean that money, or 'the market', effectively become the players that stands to benefit most from that. Big corporations, who have effectively tied their fortunes to the market, stand to benefit when the market does well. But in the same way that it's possible to look at a country's GDP or the global economy and say 'yep doing well' that's ignoring the huge sections of the population that are immiserated, spending more hours working for less money, spending more of their money on rent and travel, and the corresponding rises in homelessness, crime and suicides of despair, all the while thinking 'yep doing well' just because the richest are doing better than they were.

What we have in practice right now in parts of europe, the UK in particular, and the USA, is sometimes referred to as 'socialism for the rich'. The very thing that economic libertarians profess to hate, i.e. state capture, has been enacted over the last ~40 years. So if in actual fact the markets were allowed to do what they're supposed to do without interference, subsidies to fossil fuel companies, lobbying by big corporations to tie up small businesses in more paperwork in order to create effective monopolies, and so on and so on, we'd be in a better situation. But we can soften the worst edges of capitalism by saying 'yes, market forces, for some stuff and then figure out where it doesn't make sense. Rent controls, minimum wages, socialised healthcare i.e. single payer and/or free at the point of care. These are all compatible with a capitalism that is less like a wild horse doing it's own thing with a few hangers-on doing incredibly well out of it.

That depends on stuff I don't have the capacity to argue effectively for, but both in different situations, depending on factors I don't understand. Clearly a minimum wage of $1/hour today is a bit toothless and raising it wouldn't increase unemployment, whereas 60 years ago maybe $1/hour would in fact stifle business owners and discourage business.

The moral side is simple. If you can't afford to run a business that pays people a wage that they can survive from, you shouldn't be in business, or, that business does not deserve to exist. As soon as demand for that business increases to the point where you can afford to pay your staff a reasonable wage, that's the point where you can say that business deserves to exist.

It postulates that markets perform at their peak when there is no controller of the pricing system but the natural markets.


I think by money here you mean like 'big money' or 'corporations.' Otherwise we don't have the same definition of money and market.

Do you mean to suggest our history of data shows that lower gdp countries have comparatively higher standards of living and freedoms?


I feel like you don't know that you aren't using the wiki definition of socialism here.

Yes I call it re-solution, when we agree like that. Decentralize all things....as we evolve to where it make sense to do so. The libertarian ideal happening overnight would be the end of humanity

Hayek and Nash would argue controlling the (wage) prices distorts the market signals, If the economy suffers from such controls, it does ultimately fall on the workers family dinner table.

Conversely they mean to argue IF we can get to a natural market for wages....the workers will get paid more in REAL terms.

I don't mean you to take our word for it, I wonder if its an odd angle you haven't considered (or a rehash of the libertarian view)

The problem with economic data is that with most things there is ~no data. All we have is a minute highly correlated sample which can disprove higher sweeping over-statements

This sort of moral case is far sounder. I argue for a UBI as, apart from the other thing, wage negotiations will then be made between two parties on some fairly equal footing. It's so much harder to exploit someone who doesn't need the job.

But again, you haven't spoken to the real value of money in your sentiment.

Not sure what you want but I think it should be reduced significantly

Well the Hayekian (and Nashian) argument is that if you give government power to create money to serve the lower class you will consequently devalue the money such that you will need to then give them more.

Nash believes the want to have a devalued currency is a psychology that grew after the gold standard broke, and that we will eventually out grow out.

Im not trying to 'argue' u guys. You don't seem to be aware of the nashian/Hayekian orientation.

I think we need socialised services/etc so money doesn't matter so much. You dotnm have to give us money to but healthcare because it's free.

I suspect democratic socialism with a UBI doesn't mesh well with nash/hayek. We may all agree that capitalism cannot be optimised by giving people money. Not really an issue for me as I very much dont want to optimise capitalism.