Society/Culture A basic income for citizens.

[VineyIsLORD]

He is actually spot on, this is a natural progression with advancements in IT. Look at the present to say mid 90s, I'm interested in a house I take a virtual glance online, already reduced input from the real estate agent (not the company), I need to do some DIY I hit up tutorials on YouTube, tradies not needed unless especially complex (I actually do this as I'm s**t with my hands and anything carpentry based) same with basic car repairs, when I travel I book online and check in online, there's two roles right there gone.

VineyIsLORD is bang on in about 5 pushing 10 years time. It will be a drastically different landscape.

I also wonder how this will impact the BRIC.

China and India particularly benefited hugely from outsourcing of IT function from the West. They now have a very large share of the intellectual capital in that industry and are well placed to be at the forefront of automation.

But a lot of their low level service industry that helped them establish a middle class are at risk and they dont have the socialist programs available to support hundreds of millions being out of work...

 

[Power Raid]

View attachment 255364

yep

the biggest challenge Australia faces with increasing pressure from globalisation and automation is how we deal with the minimum wage, the unemployed and under utilised.

I don't think Australia is mature enough to discuss the issue yet as many see any discussion about minimum wage being an attack on the fabric of our society. I think we all agree minimum wages are important but how they are achieved is the real focus. We are currently failing.

 

[kickazz]

yep

the biggest challenge Australia faces with increasing pressure from globalisation and automation is how we deal with the minimum wage, the unemployed and under utilised.

I don't think Australia is mature enough to discuss the issue yet as many see any discussion about minimum wage being an attack on the fabric of our society. I think we all agree minimum wages are important but how they are achieved is the real focus. We are currently failing.

Is there a way minimum wage can be reduced, then the extra profits that businesses get out of this taxed to subsidise the costs of essentials like housing and utilities?

What would be the main traps with such an approach?

 

[Todman]

Is there a way minimum wage can be reduced, then the extra profits that businesses get out of this taxed to subsidise the costs of essentials like housing and utilities?

What would be the main traps with such an approach?

Prehaps with cheaper cost to employ people , businesses wont employ more people. Unless of course your a leader of a political party and you pay your employee $3.75 an hour.

 

[Todman]

But a lot of their low level service industry that helped them establish a middle class are at risk and they dont have the socialist programs available to support hundreds of millions being out of work...

You don't need socialist programs, those hundreds of millions out of work still manage to survive.

 

[VineyIsLORD]

You don't need socialist programs, those hundreds of millions out of work still manage to survive.

Survival isnt good enough. And the hundreds of millions im talking about are the currently employed.

 

[Hoops]

Lets say you have every adult receiving a basic income of $18,200 (The dole is about $13,000) which is the current Tax Free Threshold. So every dollar earnt effectively reduces the amount of basic income you recieve as your basic income would be added with your other income for the tax man.

Including the Medicare Levy you currently pay $18,200 in income tax once your earn about $77,200, if $18,200 of that $77,200 is derived from a basic income then you do not start paying net Income tax until your other earnings (employment investments ect) equals $59,000. This isn't much different to now once welfare payments are taken into account.

 

[Todman]

Do you remember the school kids bonus? What happened was the school put up their annual school fee by same amount or more.

Fed Gov>$$$> School Kid bonus>$$$>Parent>$$$>Gov School fees >$$$> State Gov.

 

[Mofra]

I like the idea and feel we need to move toward the concept of a base income. we already have this with the dole and pension but it isn't enough and there isn't the attached concept of participation.

we need to take a rethink on how we structure our society and locking people out of work and locking people out of society is cruel.

True, part of this is the automation/outsourcing of previously core social functions.
e.g. If I'm setting up a website and I need researched and correct source material for 50 pages I could have directed an employee or hired a temp, now I'll use oDesk / Elance / Freelancer etc to hire the lowest bidder for the job. This is the future of worktasks and will only grow.

The world is moving towards employment casualization (the growing "precariat" of the workforce) which will require a seismic shift in what we previously thought of as the working population.

 

[TheMase]

Speaking of automation has anyone watched a documentary called I will work for free? (Something like that). Is a few years old now but covers some of the future automation of the world.

 

[Power Raid]

True, part of this is the automation/outsourcing of previously core social functions.
e.g. If I'm setting up a website and I need researched and correct source material for 50 pages I could have directed an employee or hired a temp, now I'll use oDesk / Elance / Freelancer etc to hire the lowest bidder for the job. This is the future of worktasks and will only grow.

The world is moving towards employment casualization (the growing "precariat" of the workforce) which will require a seismic shift in what we previously thought of as the working population.

it's certainly interesting times and we need to look at the issue with fresh eyes. Productivity lowering the cost of living is almost more important than take home pay. As things should be measured but what you can afford rather than how many $s you earn.

Participation is also important as everyone benefits with participation and activity.

My feeling is more people will end up working and still receive government subsidies to top up wages. This already happens with Newstart and effectively Austudy, where the govt subsidises people's income for participating.

There are obvious issues with this concept without safeguards and it will only truly work if we can roll this out globally as a social policy for all nations.

 

[Lebbo73]

I also wonder how this will impact the BRIC.

China and India particularly benefited hugely from outsourcing of IT function from the West. They now have a very large share of the intellectual capital in that industry and are well placed to be at the forefront of automation.

But a lot of their low level service industry that helped them establish a middle class are at risk and they dont have the socialist programs available to support hundreds of millions being out of work...

Do you really want to know what will happen to them?

 

[VineyIsLORD]

Do you really want to know what will happen to them?

I don't think anyone knows, but if I was making a book for it:

1. Mass social upheaval, borderline or actual rebellion - followed by a military crackdown

 

[bad setanta]

They could go to Germany. Merkel will let them in.

 

[Sinjin Smith]

You don't need socialist programs, those hundreds of millions out of work still manage to survive.

Now they do, when enterprises such as AWS own and control a product such as infrastructure as a service then those outsourced Chinese and Indian data centres go down the drain and the employees are ****ed, they have no other skill set and basic IT roles they currently fulfil are extinct.

As I alluded to previously, Uber and the like are quite literally nothing, they take away business from a previously established industry some governed by archaic regulation, which restricts their ability to be competitive (many forms of state regulation, if not all ******* suck). However these are fairly narrow markets. Data centres have such a massive downstream affect on so many everyday consumer and corporate organisations. When this really kicks in we won't be talking about poor taxi industries, there will be a ******* multitude of them made extinct.

 

[VineyIsLORD]

Now they do, when enterprises such as AWS own and control a product such as infrastructure as a service then those outsourced Chinese and Indian data centres go down the drain and the employees are stuffed, they have no other skill set and basic IT roles they currently fulfil are extinct.

As I alluded to previously, Uber and the like are quite literally nothing, they take away business from a previously established industry some governed by archaic regulation, which restricts their ability to be competitive (many forms of state regulation, if not all ******* suck). However these are fairly narrow markets. Data centres have such a massive downstream affect on so many everyday consumer and corporate organisations. When this really kicks in we won't be talking about poor taxi industries, there will be a ******* multitude of them made extinct.

I don't use Uber because I feel bad for taxi drivers. It costs me more but I look at Uber and just see a complete lack of humanity. I'm fully aware that you can't fight change, by the way.

But like you say, that is nothing compared to what's coming. The canary in the coalmine so to speak.

 

[Gough]

We're all canaries for this new world. At best you can argue we're fifteen years into the internet/globalised era, nobody knows what's going to happen. Like all big changes, the printing press, the steam engine, nobody saw it coming.

 

[Sinjin Smith]

I don't use Uber because I feel bad for taxi drivers. It costs me more but I look at Uber and just see a complete lack of humanity. I'm fully aware that you can't fight change, by the way.

But like you say, that is nothing compared to what's coming. The canary in the coalmine so to speak.

Yeah I get that, I do have sympathy for the drivers. I've had to travel a bit this year and always get a taxi to the airport, however that's because I don't know the situation with Uber and the airport, didn't a few of them get accosted and fined?? Pretty much every taxi driver I've had is studying full time and drive to eek out their monetary requirements.

In saying that the regulations have killed them. Plate owners want their investment intact and will keep operating costs as low as possible meaning the driver gets ****ed. Services such as Uber are now entrenched, they ain't going away.

Canary in the coal mine, mate that canary has ******* fled. We just don't smell the gas.

 

[Todman]

Now they do, when enterprises such as AWS own and control a product such as infrastructure as a service then those outsourced Chinese and Indian data centres go down the drain and the employees are stuffed, they have no other skill set and basic IT roles they currently fulfil are extinct.

You're hinting at regulations and other red tape to strangle employers. When employers close up everybody loses.

If you want to see what 21st century socialism looks like then look at Venezuela. Even the hard left Green-Left weekly no longer mentions the glorious revolution in Venuzeula.

 

[Seeds]

It is an absolute certainty to happen over time if we dont want to live in third world standards.

As jobs become more and more automated, there simply will not be enough jobs going around for everyone. And over time the vast majority of jobs will become automated.

Capitalism has no answer to this problem other than "eat s**t or starve". This has always been capitalisms response to the unemployed, but as a system it can get away with it while the vast majority are employed. Automation is going to mean well over 50% of the workforce will not have jobs, and a basic income is going to be the key measure to address it. It will be combined with job sharing and a massive reduction in working hours as well as an increase in small creative industries.

Bangs head against the wall. Are you really using a catchphrase from the industrial revolution era? Did all the jobs disappear then when machines took all the jobs previously done by humans? Nope. Machines, computers and robots create goods and services that frees up men to do other things. Growth and improvement in living standards are created by such technology. If robots take away all the medical, teaching, accounting, manufacturing jobs then human civilisation will improve as we will have more free time for leisure and more free workers for creative jobs that are much more interesting such as writing, art, music etc. robots will cause short term displacement problems but in the medium to longer term they will elevate human civilisation to a new level of living as all previous technology booms did.

 

[Seeds]

This isnt how capitalism works.

Once automation of a job becomes cheaper than using staff, any company wishing to compete will have to automate. The only real way to stop it is by using protectionist policies which are inefficient long term and internationally.

Its why we are seeing such widespread underpayment of foreign workers in Australia.

Once 7-11 started doing it, lots of other retailers had to follow suit.

Why would you want to stop it? Should we go back and regulate against computers so all those who were employed in mundane type writer jobs can get them back? Should we outlaw the tractor and fertiliser so farmers would have to employ all the extra hands they used to? Regulating against new technology is the very thing that brings down civilisations. It stopped the Romans, Venetians, Spanish civilisations as well as numerous others.

 

[Seeds]

Reading this thread is very disturbing. Are people really ignorant to history and how economies develop? Technology growth is everything in the long run. Capital growth can only take us so far. Unless new technology involves creating weapons that will harm us it will be our saviour from political idiocy. Unless of course that political idiocy involves regulation or destruction of that new technology. Anyone who is anti technology is more dumb than climate deniers and religious believers

 

[bad setanta]

Reading this thread is very disturbing. Are people really ignorant to history and how economies develop? Technology growth is everything in the long run. Capital growth can only take us so far. Unless new technology involves creating weapons that will harm us it will be our saviour from political idiocy. Unless of course that political idiocy involves regulation or destruction of that new technology. Anyone who is anti technology is more dumb than climate deniers and religious believers

Too bloody right, any restrictive regulation's would delay our Scarlett Johansson sex robots and that will not stand. I'm watching you Honda and Toyota you're on the clock.

 

[Total Power]

Too bloody right, any restrictive regulation's would delay our Scarlett Johansson sex robots and that will not stand. I'm watching you Honda and Toyota you're on the clock.

People overestimate automation. Remember those movies we had in the 70s or even in the 80s movies like back to future, which showed that we will have hover cars by 2015 and other movies where we will have AI take over the whole city by 2020 etc etc.

 

[VineyIsLORD]

Why would you want to stop it? Should we go back and regulate against computers so all those who were employed in mundane type writer jobs can get them back? Should we outlaw the tractor and fertiliser so farmers would have to employ all the extra hands they used to? Regulating against new technology is the very thing that brings down civilisations. It stopped the Romans, Venetians, Spanish civilisations as well as numerous others.

I dont want to stop it. I was just describing it.

I said that the only method of halting it doesnt actually work long term. Sounds like you agree.