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makingmusic476 said: For all the anarcho-capitalists, libertarians, and so on, how do you expect us to handle the transition into a world in which labor has been made mostly redundant, if not completely unnecessary through advances in robotics and other technologies if government is virtually powerless?
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I'll speak for myself, not on behalf of the general "anarcho-capitalist community".
First and foremost, before we even deal with answering your premise, we have to make some big assumptions. The first is that your premise is true. Has labour been made mostly redundant? Evidence of diminishing demand for labour is easily contested. Why? Because each and every year, despite rapid increases in the development and roll-out of this job-stealing technology, the number of jobs increase.
If you look at places which have high amounts of unemployment, it's not because of technology, it's because of other factors: such as globalisation, which moves low-productivity jobs to low-cost areas; resource diminishment (such as towns based around old mining industries); or bad policy which forces jobs out of the area, either through competitors killing the local uncompetitive businesses (like Detroit's car industry Vs Japan and South Korea), or just plain-old, people can't afford the rig-marole of setting up businesses or hiring people.
So, there's the first problem with your question. It is very hard to find hard evidence that technology causing unemployment... some jobs may be destroyed, but many new jobs are created. And this is the important part. As the capital stock increases (that is, more machines that can do more things), the price of goods and services relative to wages decreases (this is because the machines reduce costs, reduced costs means more supply, more supply means lower prices). As incomes increase, people demand more and more goods and services, creating jobs in other areas.
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The second problem with your premise, which is one that I won't go too far into, is that it assumes that if technology does kill jobs, that Government would actually be effective at dealing with this issue. How? It seems to me that all the Government can do is destroy jobs and destroy wealth. I mean, what exactly is Government going to do in a world without jobs? Wave a wand, and "legislate" new jobs out of nowhere? If there are no jobs, what revenues are there for the Government to collect to even deal with this issue, if they were capable in the first place?
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So, if we assume that both of those things are true (and this is a big jump), what is my view on how we would deal with this?
Well, first, I'm going to make a prediction: the demand for jobs will start declining, and continute declining at a faster rate, than the supply of jobs ever will. What do I mean by this? Before the industrial revolution, the capital stock of the economy was exceedingly low. As a result, most people had to work all their lives just to provide them with enough for shelter, clothes and food/water. And, I mean, all their lives. Families sent their children into work as young as possible, so that the child could contribute to the income of the family. A lot of people seem to be of the belief that the world was just full of evil people and bad parents back then. This is not the case. The fact of the matter is, if the family did not have working children, then the whole family would starve. They needed all of that labour just to eat. People worked from childhood until the day they died. Dawn to dusk. 7 days a week. The whole of their lives.
When the industrial revolution began, and continued, the capital stock started increasing greatly. As a result of this, not only did incomes and quality of life start improving, but the demand for jobs to decreased. Children started leaving the work force (and subsequently entering education... which started off very short, lasting until only 12 years of age, or so... and has now increased, for most, to finishing in their early to mid 20s). Later, things like weekends kicked in. Public holidays. Retirement. Vacation allowance. So, not only did incomes improve, working conditions, lifespan, child mortality, etc., etc. but people worked less.
I mean, if we look at things. People used to demand work for around 95% of their lives... a significant portion of society now only demands work for around 50-60% of their life. I expect this trend to continue in the long run, and demand for work to always decrease.
So, my argument is that: even if your premises are true (and I don't believe them to be), and the number of jobs start decreasing, the amount of people willing to do those jobs will decrease even faster.
