LOL! Marx May Have Been Right

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

I would also like to point out one glaring thing: it is not how much you earn, it is how much what you earn can buy (i.e. purchasing power). The more efficient we become, the lower costs become, which means we can do more with significantly fewer resources. I hope that one day I only have to work 1 day a week, but have the same standard of living I do now. That would kick ass. Our poor are wealthy by most standards just 50 years ago. Make no mistake efficiency and productivity will continue to set us free as they always have.

For those that doubt this, ask yourself this. Would we all be better off if we were forced to use our non-dominant hand for all tasks and throw our computers and technology out the window? It might give us full employment, but pretty difficult to say this is a better situation than now.

22

[quote]orion wrote:

I know people who produce in China and if you think that you can have a Chinese worker that stumbled off a ricefield operate a few hundred thousand dollars of sophisticated equipment you are mistaken.

There are Siemens engineers who do virtually nothing to fly to China and back in order to troubleshoot.[/quote]

Marx’s point is that capitalists always try to push down the cost of labor. Competition forces an employer to pay wages to Chinese workers and NOT middle class Americans. This gradually decreases the middle class in America. We then see a growing class division.

The situation becomes untenable because there are fewer people who can buy the more expensive products like cars, homes, refrigerators, and more people wind up in trailer parks and run down suburbs. Deflation sets in because no one can buy major items. Eventually a depression hits with full force.

The ensuing chaos results in a totalitarian government.

23

[quote]garcia1970 wrote:

[quote]ReignIB wrote:

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
Actually this goes against what Marx was saying, so he was wrong after all.
The very foundation of his “class struggle” approach is that all members of a “proletariat class” share the same interests across national borders - the whole “proletariat unity” doctrine obviously doesn’t fly as we see here.[/quote]

It appears though that we eventually get a very wealthy and powerful elite (based on banking) and then a huge swath of people earning on average $20,000 per year or equivalent. A society that is 5% elite and 90% low income (5% professionals and such) is a formula for chaos, especially when we have Twitter and Facebook, as in the Middle East. It also sounds a lot like Marx’s prediction.

[/quote]

you’re forgetting that the main consumer base for all these products made for US companies overseas is still here and it’s our supply/demand that is setting the market trends.

also, even though there are some r&d, engineering, etc jobs that are being outsourced, companies that do outsource quickly realize that they get what they are paying for, with low cost, most of the time, comes poor quality, which may be OK for a t-shirt, for a mission critical IT app - not so much.

[/quote]

Sure. For IT you go to India. 40-60% savings, english-speaking and dirt poor. 1/3 of homes in India have no elecrtricity.[/quote]

more like this - you’re trying to save on the cost of development so you go to India.
ramp up the dev team to get them up to speed with your systems.
have them deliver poor quality product, which they can’t support themselves because by the time its delivered 80% of the original developers are gone and the documentation they provided is total crap.
so you hire some local, expensive people to fix the mess, the fix being patching/re-writing half of the system.
you feel lucky if all that did not affect your customers - i.e. no assembly line stoppages or people not getting paychecks in time etc - if it did - not so much lol.
you quickly realize that at the end of the day the total cost of ownership is the same as if you developed everything locally with quality being much lower.
you in-source. which is what the big 3 for example, notorious for outsourcing the shit out of their IT in the last 3-4 years, are doing these days.

to top it off - even the development cost for Indian or Chinese developers is getting pretty close to what you pay locally without even taking into consideration the fact that you have to train them before they can do anything.

24

[quote]kilpaba wrote:
I would also like to point out one glaring thing: it is not how much you earn, it is how much what you earn can buy (i.e. purchasing power). The more efficient we become, the lower costs become, which means we can do more with significantly fewer resources. I hope that one day I only have to work 1 day a week, but have the same standard of living I do now. That would kick ass. Our poor are wealthy by most standards just 50 years ago. Make no mistake efficiency and productivity will continue to set us free as they always have.

For those that doubt this, ask yourself this. Would we all be better off if we were forced to use our non-dominant hand for all tasks and throw our computers and technology out the window? It might give us full employment, but pretty difficult to say this is a better situation than now.[/quote]

Real wages. How much purchasing power we have per time spent laboring.

25

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]kilpaba wrote:
I would also like to point out one glaring thing: it is not how much you earn, it is how much what you earn can buy (i.e. purchasing power). The more efficient we become, the lower costs become, which means we can do more with significantly fewer resources. I hope that one day I only have to work 1 day a week, but have the same standard of living I do now. That would kick ass. Our poor are wealthy by most standards just 50 years ago. Make no mistake efficiency and productivity will continue to set us free as they always have.

For those that doubt this, ask yourself this. Would we all be better off if we were forced to use our non-dominant hand for all tasks and throw our computers and technology out the window? It might give us full employment, but pretty difficult to say this is a better situation than now.[/quote]

Real wages. How much purchasing power we have per time spent laboring.[/quote]

edit: I heard something useful from an economist once. Whenever he was comparing wages in different economies he put it in terms of how many pints of beer could be had. In his world a brewmaster is a very wealthy person, indeed. :slight_smile:

26

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]kilpaba wrote:
I would also like to point out one glaring thing: it is not how much you earn, it is how much what you earn can buy (i.e. purchasing power). The more efficient we become, the lower costs become, which means we can do more with significantly fewer resources. I hope that one day I only have to work 1 day a week, but have the same standard of living I do now. That would kick ass. Our poor are wealthy by most standards just 50 years ago. Make no mistake efficiency and productivity will continue to set us free as they always have.

For those that doubt this, ask yourself this. Would we all be better off if we were forced to use our non-dominant hand for all tasks and throw our computers and technology out the window? It might give us full employment, but pretty difficult to say this is a better situation than now.[/quote]

Real wages. How much purchasing power we have per time spent laboring.[/quote]

edit: I heard something useful from an economist once. Whenever he was comparing wages in different economies he put it in terms of how many pints of beer could be had. In his world a brewmaster is a very wealthy person, indeed. :)[/quote]

No kidding. This is just something I see people miss time and again when fears of labor saving devices or outsourcing gets drummed up. Everyone forgets real wages are all that matter, not how much you ostensibly earn or how many folks are employed. Many of the poorest countries on earth have near full employment because labor is super cheap and they have next to no capital goods (India has historically been, and to a large extent still is, a perfect example of this) so everything is super labor intensive. Yet no one thinks they are in a good position. I guess many people think there is some sweet spot we hit at some point in the past and are now going beyond into the negative marginal utility range.

I think a world in which all material needs are met with only a small amount of labor would be an incredible achievement, despite “unemployment” being extremely high, but who knows maybe the ‘saboteurs’ and Luddites knew what they were talking about.

27

[quote]kilpaba wrote:
I think a world in which all material needs are met with only a small amount of labor would be an incredible achievement, despite “unemployment” being extremely high, but who knows maybe the ‘saboteurs’ and Luddites knew what they were talking about.[/quote]

They didn’t; in an imperfect world there is always work to do.

28

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]kilpaba wrote:
I think a world in which all material needs are met with only a small amount of labor would be an incredible achievement, despite “unemployment” being extremely high, but who knows maybe the ‘saboteurs’ and Luddites knew what they were talking about.[/quote]

They didn’t; in an imperfect world there is always work to do.[/quote]

or not.If I find a way to meet my needs by working only part of the time then… there is not always work to do. And everyone can go *** itself. Then after I can do more interesting stuff. That is where art and culture comes from: boredom and not having anything to do.

Nevertheless due to people like you afflicted with work morals (the majority) finding good part-time job is hard in this world.

29

[quote]jasmincar wrote:
or not.If I find a way to meet my needs by working only part of the time then… there is not always work to do.
[/quote]

You still need to work. There is always work to do. You could do tomorrow’s work if you like. It does not mean it doesn’t need to get done just because you decide to stop working.

Successful people are good at finding work that needs to be done that the rest of us are not capable of finding.

30

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

You still need to work. There is always work to do. You could do tomorrow’s work if you like. It does not mean it doesn’t need to get done just because you decide to stop working.

Successful people are good at finding work that needs to be done that the rest of us are not capable of finding.

[/quote]

It all depends on our definition of work. We agree that everything worth doing takes efforts and is some kind of work. Here I was talking about working to accumulate wealth.

31

[quote]jasmincar wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

You still need to work. There is always work to do. You could do tomorrow’s work if you like. It does not mean it doesn’t need to get done just because you decide to stop working.

Successful people are good at finding work that needs to be done that the rest of us are not capable of finding.

[/quote]

It all depends on our definition of work. We agree that everything worth doing takes efforts and is some kind of work. Here I was talking about working to accumulate wealth.[/quote]

People that accumulate real wealth never stop working. And I mean that literally.

32

[quote]jasmincar wrote:
no it’s not. The magic invisible hand will solve everything.[/quote]

I doubt it since the invisible hand has not been allowed to operate for a great while now.

33

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]jasmincar wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

You still need to work. There is always work to do. You could do tomorrow’s work if you like. It does not mean it doesn’t need to get done just because you decide to stop working.

Successful people are good at finding work that needs to be done that the rest of us are not capable of finding.

[/quote]

It all depends on our definition of work. We agree that everything worth doing takes efforts and is some kind of work. Here I was talking about working to accumulate wealth.[/quote]

People that accumulate real wealth never stop working. And I mean that literally.[/quote]

What happens when you have everything you need? Somewhat I know the answer.

Out of curiosity do you have any hobbies or passion? Things that interest you? Outside of lifting of course.

34

[quote]jasmincar wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]jasmincar wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

You still need to work. There is always work to do. You could do tomorrow’s work if you like. It does not mean it doesn’t need to get done just because you decide to stop working.

Successful people are good at finding work that needs to be done that the rest of us are not capable of finding.

[/quote]

It all depends on our definition of work. We agree that everything worth doing takes efforts and is some kind of work. Here I was talking about working to accumulate wealth.[/quote]

People that accumulate real wealth never stop working. And I mean that literally.[/quote]

What happens when you have everything you need? Somewhat I know the answer.

Out of curiosity do you have any hobbies or passion? Things that interest you? Outside of lifting of course.
[/quote]

Real wealthy people do not work to satisfy their own needs.

They work to satisfy the needs of others which are unending.

I play guitar, brew beer, watch baseball, study ideas, and cook…when i have time.

35

Well it is simply not true that wealthy people works for the needs of other. You always have your “real” wealthy people escape though. I dont know how much billionnaires philantropist there is but it is not more than an incredibly tiny portion of humanity. If you say that no one is really wealthy but them, it is insane. A tons a people are wealthy in North America.

Now where are we heading. Going back to the initial statement that we would be better off with a small amount of workers to meet the material needs of everyone and you replying that there is always work to do in an imperfect world. Now we focus on the kind of work you have to do to meet your needs.

You didnt want to address the kind of work that doesn’t produce wealth and its value in life.

I get your view of life that we are made to do stuff and to become more and more complex. It is the only way to go. But on a personnal level I am entitled to live the life I want, an interesting life.For me this doesnt equate working to accumulate wealth but working on things that interest me.

That is why I would like to live in a world with alot of unemployment while having our material needs met with minimum labor.

I feel your disdain for this is caused by some good old christian conditionning from your past. But I am not going to assume anything.

36

Oh yes. The wealthy are soooo benevolent. Thats why the 400 richest people in America pay only 17% in taxes. Look up Charitable Remainder Trust and tell me how giving they are.

37

At a glance, it is an obvious fallacy - We don’t need an artificial middle class for it’s own sake.

But there IS a process going on right now, which will render the need for unskilled labour largely obsolete.

For instance, when easy-to-maintain 3D printers will spill out food, clothing and smarter robots will be able to fulfill most basic industrial operations, will we be in need of a different society.

Most people are content and expect a bit of pressure and work, followed by some R&R- they don’t want to be bothered by actively participating, as long as they can shout a bit; creating, as long as they can consume; realizing and solving problems, as long as things are stable and there’s an authority or a gawd or celebrities to adore.

It IS a problem when too many people are not content and feel useless.
Even if they, objectively, live better lives (comfort, leisure time, safe environment, health etc) then many kings of old.

38

[quote]garcia1970 wrote:
Oh yes. The wealthy are soooo benevolent. Thats why the 400 richest people in America pay only 17% in taxes. Look up Charitable Remainder Trust and tell me how giving they are.

[/quote]

Do you, or have you ever gone to a school for very, very spe-shul children?

Because if not I cannot imagine how being “charitable” enters into the question how much taxes you pay.

Also, the mere fact that someone has made billions already means that he has benefitted society tremendously, at least as a rule.

Maybe we should give tax breaks to billionaires, because they simply have done enough?

If we reallly wanted to abolsih poverty we would have of course to tax it and subsidize economic success and not the other way around.

39

Nobody studies economic history anymore, which is a damn shame, because you hear the same shit every 20 years or so.

I think the last one was the “OMGDZ, computers will make high skilled jobs obsolete !!!11!!”.

I have a suggestion, everyone that thinks that technological innovations will lead to mass unemployment, take your sabotes and smash your computer.

It would be a win win situation.

40

[quote]jasmincar wrote:
Well it is simply not true that wealthy people works for the needs of other. You always have your “real” wealthy people escape though. I dont know how much billionnaires philantropist there is but it is not more than an incredibly tiny portion of humanity. If you say that no one is really wealthy but them, it is insane. A tons a people are wealthy in North America.

Now where are we heading. Going back to the initial statement that we would be better off with a small amount of workers to meet the material needs of everyone and you replying that there is always work to do in an imperfect world. Now we focus on the kind of work you have to do to meet your needs.

You didnt want to address the kind of work that doesn’t produce wealth and its value in life.

I get your view of life that we are made to do stuff and to become more and more complex. It is the only way to go. But on a personnal level I am entitled to live the life I want, an interesting life.For me this doesnt equate working to accumulate wealth but working on things that interest me.

That is why I would like to live in a world with alot of unemployment while having our material needs met with minimum labor.

I feel your disdain for this is caused by some good old christian conditionning from your past. But I am not going to assume anything.[/quote]

First off, I am not talking about rich people being charitable. I am talking about them producing the things which we cannot produce ourselves. We are beholden to them for all our little trinkets and luxuries and the only reason they profit is because we use them.

If you want to work less then capitalism is the economic model you should support since it is an inherently labor saving system. Capital are those goods which can beget more goods. Capitalists are those people who help bring about more capital – essentially, any human being that produces something that he does not consume himself but rather sets aside for someone else to use.

All those cultural goods we enjoy – the arts, religion, academia, etc. – can only come about in a world that saves labor. The market for these goods only exists in a world where people do not have to labor from sunup to sundown to feed themselves. And besides, we call them starving artists because there is no real market for the art they produce; it’s just art for art’s sake in many cases.

And really, I am just speaking generally about work. I know people are individuals with their own capacities, abilities, and motivations. Some people are driven more than others and that is why they become uber wealthy. We all live our own life.

As far as religion goes I am a nonbeliever. I do not allow my world to be influenced by superstitious nonsense.