Eternity RPC Board
05-08-2017, 09:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-08-2017, 10:06 PM by Seperallis.)
I know, it's such a fun, hip, catchy title, innit? 
Anyway, I was listening to NPR on the road today, when a caller brought up a very good point about the impact robots in the workplace have had on our current problems with social security and other welfare funding. Apparently, back in the 70's when robots were first making a large impact in the workplace, especially in manufacturing, he tried to warn his congressional representatives about the impending issues (obviously to no avail, because of course).
Basically, the idea is that so many of our current problems either begin with or are exacerbated by robots supplanting humans on the job...obviously not all of them, but at least a sizable reason. Now you see, robots used to tend to replace high risk, high repetition jobs of the kind that made up the bulk of the lower-middle class. These jobs tended to be lower skilled jobs that took little time to learn but a longer time to truly master, and whose repetition often caused injury from complacency and physical strain (repetitive motion injuries being common). As time has gone on though, robots are built better and able to do more skilled labor and replace more highly trained and paid workers, the kinds of people with vocational skills but often limited "higher" education.
The problem, though, is that the robots are unpaid and these workers are left with two options: try to get/finish a "higher" education (which is hard after you've lost your income), or - and most likely to happen - enter the much lower paid service industry. In the meantime, the company that replaced the workers with robots gets big gains in savings both in wages, taxes, benefits, etc. The net effect is that more wealth is generated in the economy as a whole, while median wages and purchasing power for the people stagnate or even depress, as they're more often forced into lower-paying sectors with a glut of labor (which, as known in the laws of supply and demand of labor, further stagnates wage growth).
We've already seen these effects play out over the last 40-50 years, with the middle class shrinking and mean/median/whatever wages not only not growing, but actually dropping over time when adjusted for inflation, even when you discount the effects of the recession.
But what does this have to do with the current welfare crisis in the US ( and maybe abroad too, idk)? Well, robots don't earn wages and, as stated, the people they replace earn far less on the whole than they once did. However, they still eventually pay into and often draw from our country's welfare systems at some point or another, and the costs for those systems (Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, et al) aren't exactly going down... yet these programs are all funded either in whole or in part by payroll taxes. You know, taxes that aren't being paid by robots and their owners; taxes that are being paid in lesser amounts per person as workers get shifted from decent-paying skilled labor jobs into lower-paying service sector work.
So now we're having debates on how much to cut welfare payouts to people because we "can't afford" them because we don't have the revenue streams the people who set up these welfare programs thought we'd have because the demographics of the workforce have shifted and eroded the middle class and shifted them into lower paying work with little help in getting the skills for higher paying work. People don't buy as much because they can't afford to spend like they used to, so now "economic growth" slows, while those same people don't get healthcare because they can't afford it anymore and their new service job employers don't offer it, and the health of our nation suffers as a result as people die from preventable shit.
I'm the meantime, companies using the robots make big gains and savings, you could almost say off the backs of the people and government.
What's the point to this thing that's growing more and more ranty with each line I type? I don't know. Just exploring a line of thought inspired by something interesting I heard on the radio today.
Maybe I'll add onto it or respond to my own thoughts when I'm no longer typing this all out on my phone.
** Edit: I guess my point is that, when we talk about these things, it's not "just jobs" or whatever one thing, but one piece in a large and interconnected wan of cause and effect that impacts all aspects of governance and society. Yeah.
Anyway, I was listening to NPR on the road today, when a caller brought up a very good point about the impact robots in the workplace have had on our current problems with social security and other welfare funding. Apparently, back in the 70's when robots were first making a large impact in the workplace, especially in manufacturing, he tried to warn his congressional representatives about the impending issues (obviously to no avail, because of course).
Basically, the idea is that so many of our current problems either begin with or are exacerbated by robots supplanting humans on the job...obviously not all of them, but at least a sizable reason. Now you see, robots used to tend to replace high risk, high repetition jobs of the kind that made up the bulk of the lower-middle class. These jobs tended to be lower skilled jobs that took little time to learn but a longer time to truly master, and whose repetition often caused injury from complacency and physical strain (repetitive motion injuries being common). As time has gone on though, robots are built better and able to do more skilled labor and replace more highly trained and paid workers, the kinds of people with vocational skills but often limited "higher" education.
The problem, though, is that the robots are unpaid and these workers are left with two options: try to get/finish a "higher" education (which is hard after you've lost your income), or - and most likely to happen - enter the much lower paid service industry. In the meantime, the company that replaced the workers with robots gets big gains in savings both in wages, taxes, benefits, etc. The net effect is that more wealth is generated in the economy as a whole, while median wages and purchasing power for the people stagnate or even depress, as they're more often forced into lower-paying sectors with a glut of labor (which, as known in the laws of supply and demand of labor, further stagnates wage growth).
We've already seen these effects play out over the last 40-50 years, with the middle class shrinking and mean/median/whatever wages not only not growing, but actually dropping over time when adjusted for inflation, even when you discount the effects of the recession.
But what does this have to do with the current welfare crisis in the US ( and maybe abroad too, idk)? Well, robots don't earn wages and, as stated, the people they replace earn far less on the whole than they once did. However, they still eventually pay into and often draw from our country's welfare systems at some point or another, and the costs for those systems (Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, et al) aren't exactly going down... yet these programs are all funded either in whole or in part by payroll taxes. You know, taxes that aren't being paid by robots and their owners; taxes that are being paid in lesser amounts per person as workers get shifted from decent-paying skilled labor jobs into lower-paying service sector work.
So now we're having debates on how much to cut welfare payouts to people because we "can't afford" them because we don't have the revenue streams the people who set up these welfare programs thought we'd have because the demographics of the workforce have shifted and eroded the middle class and shifted them into lower paying work with little help in getting the skills for higher paying work. People don't buy as much because they can't afford to spend like they used to, so now "economic growth" slows, while those same people don't get healthcare because they can't afford it anymore and their new service job employers don't offer it, and the health of our nation suffers as a result as people die from preventable shit.
I'm the meantime, companies using the robots make big gains and savings, you could almost say off the backs of the people and government.
What's the point to this thing that's growing more and more ranty with each line I type? I don't know.
Just exploring a line of thought inspired by something interesting I heard on the radio today.Maybe I'll add onto it or respond to my own thoughts when I'm no longer typing this all out on my phone.
** Edit: I guess my point is that, when we talk about these things, it's not "just jobs" or whatever one thing, but one piece in a large and interconnected wan of cause and effect that impacts all aspects of governance and society. Yeah.