Bishop149 wrote: ↑Wed, 1. May 19, 19:23
...I'm not sure I understand your point here? Is it that "where would the resources come from?"
If so the answer is, ample resources already exist they are just not applied correctly to the welfare of the general populace which is what should be rectified.
This could be done without tearing up the entire economic system. . . . . no, that would be Phase II.
"Ample resources already exist" because of the current system, not despite it or otherwise existing in a vacuum.
How, exactly, does this "Wealth Inequality" act to disempower people? ... But, now it's "Wealth Inequality" that's the major impediment?
We have established that US GDP has (a few blips aside)
steadily increased and that despite this poverty rate and median average income have remained essentially static since the mid 1970's. So were is the increase in GDP going? Because it doesn't appear to be benefiting the majority of the populace.
Are most Americans are doing less work? This might be one argument to explain away the discrepancy . . . . but no employment rate has also been broadly constant, although this one admittedly fluctuates a lot more than the others.
Notice the adjusted graph for the increased number of households over population increase, which does contribute to a purely median household based scoring:
stlouisfed - Puzzle of real median household income
Note that there is some effect there. Admittedly, not one that completely accounts for all differences. However, it is a substantial effect on relative growth. A straight "Median Household Income" score did not take into account the shrinking of the population in those households and the growth of individual households being greater than the growth of the base population. I haven't seen what they have suggested as the mechanism, but from research long ago, it would likely be due to a number of factors including the decline of multi-generational households in the US, an increase in independent households (Single occupant, single earner), increases in employment opportunities for women, increase of single-mother syndrome, etc...
So American work the same, generate more but do not benefit from it. The answer is pretty damn obvious, rather than increasing the overall standard of living of the populace the increase in GDP has instead fuelling the growth in wealth inequality as shown
here
Unless something is done to stop this then empowering people to be more productive is pointless, their increased productivity will simply continue to benefit the rich rather than them.
This is not a direct effect of increases in GDP. It's not caused by that. That's important to get out front and I think you would generally agree.
Here's a bunch of wage-related charts an' stuffs that may be useful... or not.
BLS - Earnings and Wages
Note that there are quite a few reports detailing the subject at hand in "wage discrepancy." But, also note that the minimum wage totals on both employer and employee have been rising, too. The costs for providing "benefits" has also risen. Cost of living has also risen and, depending on locale, may or may not have been able to be covered by rising minimum wages. Location/region is important across all instances where "poverty level" is concerned and is one of the reasons, for instance, for "adjusted poverty level." In short, in that regard, it is not always an easy figure to deduce. What may work to keep someone above what would be considered the "poverty level" in one area may be woefully inadequate in another region/location/area.
The latest report:
BLS - Employment Situation (March 2019)
Note the highlighted largest gains in growth. Healthcare, professional and technical services, food and drink services, with construction, manufacturing and "everything else" relatively unchanged.
Can you draw some inferences from some of that? Why, for instance, did "food and drink services" see more growth and what sorts of living wage do those pay?
Also note that some statistics didn't change and may likely not change or, rather, are difficult to change. Those working jobs part-time due to "other reasons," those "discouraged workers" and "long-term unemployed" etc... It's very likely that some of those numbers will not appreciably change no matter what the general state of a nation's economy is. And, if we apply those "these percentages will likely never decrease because there's no such thing as a 100% fully employed workforce" to your "poverty level" numbers, we're looking at a few percentage points there in "inescapable poverty" that's not going to change no matter what the GDP is. I'm implying that once you start adjusting for some things, you assertion regarding the ever-rising number of poverty stricken in the US gets a little weaker. I'm not saying it's not there, but you can't discount a base level of "poverty" being inescapable when compared to a total population in any nation. If we're concerned about that, which I am too, then we can't ignore it, either.
Automation is an interesting case point, and the following is more of a philosophical ramble rather than an strict examination of economic reality . . . but if you'll indulge me.
A job is automated, and a human worker is no longer required. The economic output remains either exactly the same or more likely becomes more efficient in some manner as a result (the motivation for the automation).
This is a terrible thing right? Poor worker, how are they to live? They have lost their job and now must seek another, they may struggle to do so and have to accept worse job and a lower standard of living as their primary skillset is now redundant. But why?
If we accept as our central economic premise that the primary purpose of work and the resulting economic output and societal advances is to enable the worker to live well, then why exactly would automation result in a reduction of of the workers standard of living? The work is still being done, likely being done better and nothing in society has economically changed very much, the same resources are available. So surely the worker can still be support at their previous standard of living and has simply been freed from the requirement to work? Oh happy day! They are free to peruse their passion project of art, science, philosophy or slobbing in front of daytime TV!
But this is not the case, because that central premise is not in fact how capitalism works, and automation merely represents an opportunity for the newly unemployed worker to be further exploited to further concentrate capital.
This is wrongly thought through.
A worker who loses their job due to automation has been "displaced." The "job" is still there, it's just being filled by "automation." That worker still retains their skill-set. That skill-set is still marketable if there are jobs that require it remaining. But, if there are no more jobs that require that skill-set, then the worker's skill-set has been outmoded.
All of that takes place on the Day they get their "Pink Slip." So, wat do? Get a job using their skill-set, of course! But, as you suggest, that skill-set is no longer marketable - Competition for that job is now saturated by the availability of automation. The more available it is, the cheaper it is as well, thus acting to further reduce possible wage gains by further reducing the wage someone is willing to pay that live worker to do a job. And, when the costs of automation drops below a critical level, the job itself will be outmoded. It will "disappear." Wheels are no longer "people carrying a crossbar on a palanquin" but will now always be made of vulcanized rubber fueled by a complex energy-conversion system fueled by internal combustion engines and systems that transfer mechanical energy.
But.. wait? We now have a new job market being created. Instead of actually serving in a job where a "wheel" has displaced the worker and ultimately outmoded the job, itself, we now have... wheel manufacture, internal combustion engine manufacture and mechanical energy transfer system manufacture. What drives this market? People buying and driving palanquins that use wheels, internal combustion engines, etc.. ad nauseum. (This is one of the proposals for displacement correction - Retraining workers to make the things that displaced them from their previous jobs, since those things are now driven by new consumers. BUT, that won't fulfill all re-employment requirements. I'm in favor of a robotic utopia where nobody has to work a job they don't like... I would also like a
perfect cup of coffee.)
That does take the focus off the individual displaced worker a bit, right? But, I'm not ignoring them and this is kind of the crux of the problem you are presenting. I will try to present this... in brief.
What you're ultimately suggesting is that "in order to work" (In terms of adjusting a job market to suit) your system would have to use a lot of its energy and input in controlling either what the market produced or the workers, themselves. The market would have to be denied the ability for dynamic growth and when such growth did occur, workers would have to be assigned to task, else products, goods and services, could not be easily regulated or their production requirements filled. Eventually, you'd get to a point where a certain amount of growth, especially that which required highly skilled technical skill-sets was extremely difficult to achieve, if at all. Trained and capable workers are not stamped out of a press on demand... (Unless they are all robots.
)
And, where did we see these sorts of systems fail? How often did they fail?
That's just based on your inclusion of jobs and work and such like that. It does not address certain things which should be more of our focus, to be honest. Otherwise, the choice here seems to be a system that promotes growth and rapid economic expansion to one that requires the exact opposite conditions in order to thrive and, based on that, your argument in favor of a different system is not the most desirable one.
In short - Why not use the resources at hand and the possibility of the continued growth and advancement that the current system has proven to produce in order to "solve" the problem of "solvable solutions to poverty?"
Why not do that instead of purposefully shoving the whole system down the crapper in favor of ones that have long-proven they are economically untenable?
