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How do you distribute wealth in a world with no work?

Why do you assume there would be no economic need?

If virtually all needs were satisfied by technology, without the need for human labor, then there would be no need for scarcity. economics is the study of scarcity, thus economics and our capitalistic system (which is one way of dealing with scarcity) would be totally different, possibly even a moot subject.
 
If virtually all needs were satisfied by technology, without the need for human labor, then there would be no need for scarcity. economics is the study of scarcity, thus economics and our capitalistic system (which is one way of dealing with scarcity) would be totally different, possibly even a moot subject.

1. I am not a defender of capitalism.

2. Please explain your reasoning, that robots would eliminate scarcity.
 
1. I am not a defender of capitalism.

2. Please explain your reasoning, that robots would eliminate scarcity.

the basis of this thread is "how do you distribute wealth in a world with no work", so I assume that we are talking about technology replacing all need for human labor. So as long as human labor isn't needed, then there is no need for scarcity, aside from limitations on natural resources. As far as natural resources, the trend is that we are creating more and more using less and less energy and raw materials, so I'm not even sure that natural resources would be a limiting factor - many of our products are now "virtual" products that don't really even use natural resources other than a scant tad of electricity.
 
I'm envisioning a two class system where one has magic robots and one doesn't yet. Once those people with magic robots have everything, they've reached utopia. The other class continues as we currently are until they steadily acquire magic robot technology.

You're forgetting one of the primary drivers in our current system. Relative "wealth". Much wealth accumulation has to do with having more than the next guy.

If everybody has plenty, those who need to have more than everybody else won't be "special" anymore. Won't be able to feel superior simply because of their money pile.

These people will fight mankind's freedom from toil for this reason, and they have the resources to keep the game the way it is, to the rest of our detriment.
 
the basis of this thread is "how do you distribute wealth in a world with no work", so I assume that we are talking about technology replacing all need for human labor. So as long as human labor isn't needed, then there is no need for scarcity, aside from limitations on natural resources. As far as natural resources, the trend is that we are creating more and more using less and less energy and raw materials, so I'm not even sure that natural resources would be a limiting factor - many of our products are now "virtual" products that don't really even use natural resources other than a scant tad of electricity.

Food, water, etc. are still required. Please explain in detail, how robots eliminate the need for these necessities.
 
Food, water, etc. are still required. Please explain in detail, how robots eliminate the need for these necessities.

technology could produce food and water.

There is no lack of water on this earth, only a lack of clean water where some people live. Virtually every drop of water that was on this earth a million years ago is still here. so the only real issue is the distribution and collection of it. If we all had a water processing machine in our homes, then there would be no issue at all, we would just keep using the same water over and over again, and what little was lost could be replaced by collecting rainwater.

We have already reduce the number of human labor hours required to produce food by something like 90% over the course of the last 115 years, and the trend towards producing more food with less labor appears to be continuing. Again, I believe the assumption may be that we all have a replicator machine like in Star Trek, looks like a microwave, just tell it what food to produce, and open the door and it's magically there and cooked to perfection. Scientists have been growing living tissue in labor for years, I can see no reason why it's impossible that we might one day have a bacon growing machine.

And were would the molecules come from to create this stuff? I dunno, maybe recycling? The water processing machine could send all the non-water material back to the storage tanks, would would feed the replicator machines. If granny dies, just toss her in the garbage recycling bin and you might have enough meat molecules to make a years supply of bacon. Soylent Green anyone?

I know that some of this sounds like pie in the sky technology that may never come to be realized, but maybe not. Our cellphones make the communicators that they had in Star Trek look like primitive toys, and we can already speak to computers, just like in many a futuristic movie.
 
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technology could produce food and water.

There is no lack of water on this earth, only a lack of clean water where some people live. Virtually every drop of water that was on this earth a million years ago is still here. so the only real issue is the distribution and collection of it. If we all had a water processing machine in our homes, then there would be no issue at all, we would just keep using the same water over and over again, and what little was lost could be replaced by collecting rainwater.

We have already reduce the number of human labor hours required to produce food by something like 90% over the course of the last 115 years, and the trend towards producing more food with less labor appears to be continuing. Again, I believe the assumption may be that we all have a replicator machine like in Star Trek, looks like a microwave, just tell it what food to produce, and open the door and it's magically there and cooked to perfection. Scientists have been growing living tissue in labor for years, I can see no reason why it's impossible that we might one day have a bacon growing machine.

And were would the molecules come from to create this stuff? I dunno, maybe recycling? The water processing machine could send all the non-water material back to the storage tanks, would would feed the replicator machines. If granny dies, just toss her in the garbage recycling bin and you might have enough meat molecules to make a years supply of bacon. Soylent Green anyone?

I know that some of this sounds like pie in the sky technology that may never come to be realized, but maybe not. Our cellphones make the communicators that they had in Star Trek look like primitive toys, and we can already speak to computers, just like in many a futuristic movie.

We seen to be having two different conversations.

I'm only concerned with things that have some small possibility of actually happening.
 
We seen to be having two different conversations.

I'm only concerned with things that have some small possibility of actually happening.

As opposed to something that has a large possibility of happening?
 
As opposed to pure fiction.

So which innovation do you believe is impossible?

the electric light bulb? Flying machines? Space rockets?

Seriously, lot's of people didn't believe that these things were possible or would ever exist.

I see no reason that humans can't create anything that is within the laws of physics.
 
So which innovation do you believe is impossible?

the electric light bulb? Flying machines? Space rockets?

Seriously, lot's of people didn't believe that these things were possible or would ever exist.

I see no reason that humans can't create anything that is within the laws of physics.

Auto-bacon.
 
You're forgetting one of the primary drivers in our current system. Relative "wealth". Much wealth accumulation has to do with having more than the next guy.

If everybody has plenty, those who need to have more than everybody else won't be "special" anymore. Won't be able to feel superior simply because of their money pile.

These people will fight mankind's freedom from toil for this reason, and they have the resources to keep the game the way it is, to the rest of our detriment.
If they haven't reached utopia with a utopia constructing robot, then there are still jobs that robots can't perform, and therefore humans are still going to be employed to perform them.
 
If they haven't reached utopia with a utopia constructing robot, then there are still jobs that robots can't perform, and therefore humans are still going to be employed to perform them.

Yeah. Hope you get exactly what you deserve.
 
Yeah. Hope you get exactly what you deserve.
I'm not sure which way you're going with this, but I'm not arguing that people hoarding resources are good, I'm just explaining my take on the macroeconomics of the issue.
 
The British Chancellor's take is trickle down, shovel up, the top 50% have benefited while the bottom 50% have done significantly worse. The unemployment figure has dropped by half a million because a million zero-hours contracts have been created. Only one in forty jobs created since this government came in has been full-time hours. "That's the way to do it!" as Mr Punch says.
 
I'm not sure which way you're going with this, but I'm not arguing that people hoarding resources are good, I'm just explaining my take on the macroeconomics of the issue.

I think you are presuming a smooth transition without the element of amoral greed.

Too many NEED to have more than others. Like some people NEED to save every newspaper the ever get.

Look at this thread and how many can't get their head around technology removing the NEED to toil.

We have to adapt, but I don't think fighting tooth and nail for the few remaining jobs while most starve so a handful can reap fortunes is the answer. Even though that's what our current iteration of capitalism demands.
 
I think you are presuming a smooth transition without the element of amoral greed.

Too many NEED to have more than others. Like some people NEED to save every newspaper the ever get.

Look at this thread and how many can't get their head around technology removing the NEED to toil.

We have to adapt, but I don't think fighting tooth and nail for the few remaining jobs while most starve so a handful can reap fortunes is the answer. Even though that's what our current iteration of capitalism demands.
Keep in mind you're arguing with someone that believes that wealth is exploitation and should be viewed comparably to obesity.

You're making the argument that technology will inherently create an oligarchy of technology wielders v. non-wielders. I'm arguing that while that's a possibility if allowed, the market would in theory correct for it. Technology producers require consumers to purchase goods. Without consumers, retailers don't exist, which means transportation doesn't exist, which means that manufacturing doesn't exist, which means that materials aren't acquired. There is a balance that has to be created. A fully automated society without balance doesn't work any more than a non-automated society works without balance. Until the fully automated society builds a fully automated consumer base, there's an equation that doesn't currently add up.
 
Cuba forcibly redistributed and crashed too. When will you commies ever learn? It does NOT work.

United States forcibly redistributed too and we crashed. We just didn't crash as hard.
 
It's not as if work being unnecessary is unprecedented. Just look at primitives, or non-human primates. You see them working? They mainly just sit around. And when they do bother to lift a finger, it's generally in the form of leisure activities like hunting or screwing. Rationing in such circumstances, where it does take place, can be on the basis of need (such as when harvests were distributed equally, just as stomach capacities roughly are), merit (such as when a carcass is distributed among the hunting party and their families, with perhaps the deliverer of the killing blow getting the coveted testicles), or proto-property, which is to say violence (such as when an ape or a capitalist calls dibs on a fruit tree and promises to kill anyone who comes near it). I think it's obvious that the fist two systems are preferable, perhaps one for some resources and the other for others. Also, I have to quibble with the notion that we now ration according to work (forgive me if that wasn't your meaning). It is true that the many without property receive a wage in return for working for the few with property, but it is the latter who accumulate wealth. Nor did the accumulators or even their ancestors create the machines; the machines are the product of previous, analogous production cycles. Nor does this regression ultimate in entrepreneurial Adam's indispensable genius, unless of course you count the forced enclosure of the commons as entrepreneurship. Don't get me wrong, some capitalists do some work. For in addition to the saboteurs known as common shareholders, who merely ransom industry, there are a minority (a group owning a minority of capital, that is, not a minority of capitalists) who actually oversee the operation of that which they hold hostage. If the latter had instead to sell their labor to the former, the managerial skills they'd have acquired through a lifetime of bossing their fellows would of course return them a higher than average wage. However, even that wage would be less than the income they earn from the product of their labor and their capital both. An owner-operator is thus both a capitalist and a worker, who, dispensing with the formality of paying himself a wage, confuses it with the unearned part of his income and lets his apologists define the whole by the little that is labor.
 
It's not as if work being unnecessary is unprecedented. Just look at primitives, or non-human primates. You see them working? They mainly just sit around. And when they do bother to lift a finger, it's generally in the form of leisure activities like hunting or screwing. Rationing in such circumstances, where it does take place, can be on the basis of need (such as when harvests were distributed equally, just as stomach capacities roughly are), merit (such as when a carcass is distributed among the hunting party and their families, with perhaps the deliverer of the killing blow getting the coveted testicles), or proto-property, which is to say violence (such as when an ape or a capitalist calls dibs on a fruit tree and promises to kill anyone who comes near it). I think it's obvious that the fist two systems are preferable, perhaps one for some resources and the other for others. Also, I have to quibble with the notion that we now ration according to work (forgive me if that wasn't your meaning). It is true that the many without property receive a wage in return for working for the few with property, but it is the latter who accumulate wealth. Nor did the accumulators or even their ancestors create the machines; the machines are the product of previous, analogous production cycles. Nor does this regression ultimate in entrepreneurial Adam's indispensable genius, unless of course you count the forced enclosure of the commons as entrepreneurship. Don't get me wrong, some capitalists do some work. For in addition to the saboteurs known as common shareholders, who merely ransom industry, there are a minority (a group owning a minority of capital, that is, not a minority of capitalists) who actually oversee the operation of that which they hold hostage. If the latter had instead to sell their labor to the former, the managerial skills they'd have acquired through a lifetime of bossing their fellows would of course return them a higher than average wage. However, even that wage would be less than the income they earn from the product of their labor and their capital both. An owner-operator is thus both a capitalist and a worker, who, dispensing with the formality of paying himself a wage, confuses it with the unearned part of his income and lets his apologists define the whole by the little that is labor.

Interesting first post. I'm not suggesting that I agree with all of it, and it's a little difficult to comprehend such a wall of text, but I think you have some good points there.

Welcome to DP!
 
Interesting first post. I'm not suggesting that I agree with all of it, and it's a little difficult to comprehend such a wall of text, but I think you have some good points there.

Welcome to DP!

Thanks, and I'll to use proper spacing in the future.
 
Who would own the robots and technology, and why would they be willing to provide the capital and technology to others who have nothing to exchange for it?

Who owns all the free ware that is available on the internet currently?


Someone is going to develop a design for a robot that will be to, among other things, replicate itself. And they'll give it away for free. Because they didn't do it for the money, they did it to see if they could.
 
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