What to do with all the surplus humans?
Perhaps 15 years ago it occurred to me that the accelerating advance of computing, robotics, and mass production would inevitably enable capital owners (and the brains that program their machines/capital) to produce massive output and generate immense wealth for themselves with no help from the vast majority of humanity. The rich would get rich beyond imagination while an increasing proportion of people would find their labor of little or no value.
Well, we’re well down that road and driving faster and faster. Middle class Americans' income has stagnated for decades while rich Americans' income has skyrocketed. The same is true globally. China’s nouveau riche have made vast fortunes while China’s manufacturing laborers are being laid off by the tens of millions after years toiling in sweatshops for a dollar an hour.
Because technology now enables immense supply chains and economies of scale, global mega-corporations dominate. To give but one example, America is littered with Wal-Marts and cookie-cutter chain store malls, while mom-and-pop stores have shuttered their doors. Though shoppers benefit from these efficiencies, workers have suffered far more. Today’s Wal-Mart greeter doesn’t make what yesterday’s independent shoestore salesman earned.
You might well expect (as I did) that the millions of Americans falling out of the middle class into bankruptcy and poverty would demand a stronger social safety net (a.k.a., socialism). I know I did. But John Edwards' campaign — emphasizing the need to help the least fortunate among us — went nowhere, even before his foolish philandering became known.
Ironically, socialism has arrived in America… but not in the form I anticipated. Instead of a democratic society declaring rapidly widening income inequality unacceptable and implementing a solid social safety net, we’ve got wealthy capital owners and their money managers demanding that we socialize unbelievable financial world losses — Can anyone help me comprehend ten trillion dollars? — following years of massive privatized gains.
I’ve always liked the idea of a “guaranteed minimum income” that none other than radical leftist Richard Nixon considered seriously. A guaranteed minimum income would provide a social safety net for all without an expensive bureaucracy and without destroying work incentives. (Income-based social programs erode work incentives because benefits are withdrawn as wages rise.) It angers me that the working poor in America can’t adequately feed and clothe their children. We could eliminate all these problems by giving every American a basic income. But many Americans have been propagandized into seeing “socialism” as an evil word. We could eliminate the highly regressive payroll tax (FICA) that taxes low- and middle-class labor but not high-income labor or capital (“unearned”) income, but this would not help the rapidly expanding unemployed class.
If our taxes are being spent to compensate the rich for investment losses even as millions of Americans are losing their jobs (many, perhaps, never to work again in remotely comparable jobs), couldn’t we also provide a basic living income for the hoardes of unemployed and under-employed? Wouldn’t putting money in the pockets of those who most need it also provide a wonderful stimulus to our economy?
Posted by James on Wednesday, February 04, 2009