The future of the work force

[CountDeMoney]

Avarice and greed drive our economic model.  Chat.

Elizabeth Warren is a goddess of reformation.

[Admiral Yi]

Elizabeth Warren is a goddess of reformation.

Thank you.  Perfect example of meatheaded Saunderite progressive Michael Moore disregard the consequences type of thinking.

Banks are bad, debit card charges are bad, you put a cap on them and everybody lives happily ever after in the workers' paradise. 

Except when banks stop offering debit cards to people with low balances because they're losing money.

[Ideologue]

False equivalence.  Obviously central planning would work substantially better in the U.S. or other Western countries.

How so?  The number of degrees in central planning awarded by US universities?

Our historical experience with an accountable technocracy and a robust civil society, not to mention a capitalist epoch of industrialization, which are 100% requisite to doing it right.

[Admiral Yi]

Our historical experience with an accountable technocracy and a robust civil society, not to mention a capitalist epoch of industrialization, which are 100% requisite to doing it right.

Technocracy would have some limited value.

Civil society I would argue would undermine central planning.  Civil society is about expressing your wishes.  Central planning is about imposing choices on you.

No clue how capitalist industrialization factors in.  Please elaborate.

[Admiral Yi]

You're not much of a chatter Seedy.

[CountDeMoney]

You're not much of a chatter Seedy.

Shhh, Rachel Maddow is on.

[Ideologue]

A capitalist period of industrialization would ensure an industrial base that was more-or-less in step with consumer demand.  I'm not convinced a central planning authority is likely to do that, because everywhere it's been tried, it has failed.  The USSR gets an asterisk, maybe, for legitimately needing to turn so much of its GDP toward its defense concerns in the early days, but it's still not a good model.  Innovation being stifled in a centrally planned economy is also a concern.  After industrialization is complete, useful technological innovation slows anyway (Internet excepted--but a government invention) and is often largely abandoned because of externalized costs of the status quo (e.g., reliance on hydrocarbons).  It is replaced by organizational and financial innovation on the margins.

I feel that central planning ab initio would still be more plausible in the U.S., but the point is that we could and should have enacted large-scale nationalization no later than 1970.

Civil society (including democracy) would undermine central planning only in the sense that fewer gargantuan statues of the Stalingrad lady and chandeliers so heavy no ceiling could support them would be built, and ultimately it would make it far more stable and stronger.  Consumer feedback, and a receptive demeanor on the part of the central planners based on accountability, is vital to the long-term success of a centrally planned economy--just as it is vital to a private firm.  The national business operate along the exact same organizational principles, with the only difference being that exploitation would be reduced and the "profits" of labor married to capital would be more widely shared by the nation, in the form of higher real wages, lower prices, no taxes, or whatever.

Wal-Mart would just be a USMart or something and we'd directly pay its workers instead of indirectly through SNAP, Medicare, and whatever other life-sustaining benefits that the parasites that own it don't pay and pocket as additional profit instead.  I don't believe billions in profits is the only possible incentive to ensure the retention of managerial talent adequate to keep sodas and tampons get stocked on shelves.  I think people paid $100k's instead of $1bn's can do the job perfectly well.

The technological upheaval of the 21st century demands central planning: with it, jobs could be shed with abandon, a guaranteed income established, and a workerless state be approached.  This is unlike our world of atomized firms, which eliminate jobs in order to increase profits, care nothing for the outcomes of those they left behind, and wonder why demand is so low.

[MadImmortalMan]

Our historical experience with an accountable technocracy and a robust civil society, not to mention a capitalist epoch of industrialization, which are 100% requisite to doing it right.

Technocracy would have some limited value.

Civil society I would argue would undermine central planning.  Civil society is about expressing your wishes.  Central planning is about imposing choices on you.

We'd have less corruption too. At least at first.

[Ideologue]

Obviously I would not suggest getting rid of democracy and the democratic process.  This is the root of all communist state's failures.

[alfred russel]

Yeah, people needed servants before the invention of washing machines etc because it was hard long work to get the household chores done.

Those once hard to do tasks are as simple as pushing a button now.

To an extent, but I would like to have a team of people to cater to my families needs and keep my affairs in order.

[Admiral Yi]

Dump:

Innovation aside, how would you centrally plan creativity?

And probably the heart of the matter, how would you assign, compensate, and incentivize labor?

[alfred russel]

Money may confuse matters. Think of what is going on in the world ignoring money and in terms of barter.

People who are employed typically specialize. The farmer may grow corn, which he trades for things that other people do. For example, a piece of furniture someone has made, or a massage for his wife, or a tudor for his son. That is the basis for the entire economy--I do stuff other people want, and they give me a chance to get stuff I want.

Better productivity just means that people get more efficient at what they are doing. We are producing more things that other people want. The increases aren't uniform: there are limiting factors in some cases, such as land, or oil.

But that doesn't change that there are innumerable things that many of us want that can be increased. I would like more massage therapy, my daughter to have a good tutor for each subject, and better healthcare for everyone. The reason many of us do not get everything we want in life isn't just because their are finite supplies of aluminum, etc. If we become more productive, we will have more resources to pursue those things.

[Ideologue]

Innovation: we live in a society that expects innovation; it's capitalism's most noble legacy.  To that end, the national firm would appropriate large R&D budgets and staffs toward desired results (let's say a cure for cancer--but anything works).  Innovation can continue along the fringes as well--I wouldn't envision an economy completely free from private entrepreneurship; it would be the key sectors where nationalization would be most beneficial, e.g. energy, banking, healthcare/pharmaceuticals, big-box consumer retail, and so forth.*  Further, because the national firm is beyond catastrophic failure, costlier but potentially higher-yielding research can be performed with a higher tolerance for scientific or market failure.  How you'd precisely balance this against the risks to personal careers is a bit more involved, but you can see the general shape of things.

Incentivization: money and status.  It seems so obvious, that I'm not sure I understand the question.

*The great thing about the conglomeration inherent to late-stage capitalism is that only maybe a hundred companies need to be nationalized/bought out/merged to control the key sectors.  Competition from upstarts is an issue, that regulation can handle.

[Admiral Yi]

The national firm absolutely can fail.  In Europe they've been dropping like flies.

If you use the money incentive, you have to allow for the possibility of withdrawing that incentive if the worker is not performing.  I.e. unemployment.  I'm also not sure how nationalization and central planning solves the problem of stagnating wages, which was the starting point of this discussion.

Still haven't addressed creativity.

[Ideologue]

The national firm absolutely can fail.  In Europe they've been dropping like flies.

Yeah, our national firm isn't likely to let some foreign devil control its money supply.

If you use the money incentive, you have to allow for the possibility of withdrawing that incentive if the worker is not performing.  I.e. unemployment.  I'm also not sure how nationalization and central planning solves the problem of stagnating wages, which was the starting point of this discussion.

Unless the national wealth is going down, it's a gross inequality problem (it's also a liquidity trap/aggregate demand problem presently, but that's temporary).  Minor and medium inequality is fine, however--obviously equal pay for unequal work is going to be unworkable, even if status or interest is a greater motivator for many high-value professions like medicine and computer science.  And equal pay for no work is not on anyone's agenda until we're in, like, the Star Trek economy.

Still haven't addressed creativity.

I don't have to.  It's a natural human trait.

Btw I'd leave speech-creating industries entirely or almost entirely to themselves.  Though central planning would be a good way to get my $500 million Legion of Super-Heroes movie financed, it's still not a very good idea.