(08-21-2018, 09:55 AM)David Horn Wrote: Unworkable solutions can prevail for extended periods, if the underlying structure of society is adequately strong and those unworkable solutions aren't overly toxic. But there is an advancing paradigm, fully supported by the Trumpists and not really opposed by conventional Republicans or Democrats, that promotes or at least permits the total emasculation of the workforce for private gain. Once all gains flow to capital and work declines to the point that human effort is essentially unnecessary, the rule of the wealthy will either precipitate a mass removal of undesirable human beings or a revolution that topples capital entirely.
The foundations of capitalism with either no welfare state or a very welfare state one crumble when the nexus between work and income disappears. The dream of the two Master Classes (owners and executives) of America is to get First World effort out of people for Third World pay. That of course means the destruction of the welfare state and of the only institutions (unions) that can protect workers from exploitation and abuse. Productivity will collapse or workers will turn against their masters.
"Mass removal of undesirable human beings" sounds much like genocide, whether through direct killings or through starvation. Of course if it is simply removing people from the workforce because they are disabled, then millions will have to find ways in which to use their time. I have done that when unemployed several times.
Quote:The only alternative is a proactive move to something akin to socialism that permits a sharing of what will be virtually unlimited wealth. The already wealthy will oppose this, and the self-righteous up-by-my-bootstraps crowd may as well, but the alternatives to doing this peacefully are not pretty. This is all speculation on my part, since I don't' expect to be here when it happens. My grandchildren will, and that's enough reason for me to give a damn.
1. Tax the hell out of easy money. I don't simply mean dividends and interest, as such suggest saving and shrewd investment. Henry George's single tax on economic rents (passive investors taking advantage of intractable scarcity, as in housing) is a good principle. Capitalism works to the extent that it promotes enterprise, thrift, rational decisions, good customer service, careful use of resources, and plain-old toil. Those create or preserve prosperity.
2. Productivity with little human labor might as well compensate people who lose their jobs because of it. Thus robot-based manufacturing and self check-outs. Tax it.
3. We will need to show people how to use their leisure time. That implies extending the normal time of education for youth, perhaps from K-12 to K-14. Even if only to insure that Americans never vote for another demagogue (and many who voted for Donald Trump would have supported Hugo Chavez in Venezuela were they there instead of America) we need to make sure that our youth get economics (there is no free lunch), psychology (know how to detect and reject abusive manipulation), philosophy (at least formal logic!), and English composition (how to make competent reports). While we are at it we might as well expose youth to art, literature, classical music, folk music, jazz, and and first-rate cinema so that they will find out what to do when working 28 hours a week instead of 40. But the liberal arts are impractical, you say? What could be more practical than finding meaning in life, or at least being able to seek it?
Speaking of classical music, I was near the point of ending it all. Then I listened to Schubert's Octet in F for winds and strings... and realized that I did not wish to risk going to some eternal destination in which such music was unavailable. No, it is not a quick, bright, cheery pick-me-up obscene under the circumstances. It's worth the time...
Your life is worth something... take an hour and enjoy something at times languid, at times, peppy, at times profound, and ultimately cathartic.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.