Can we imagine a courageous state, rising to the challenge of creating employment to meet need?
Might tax be appropriately reformed?
Sigh.
The problem stems from this:
I also recognise that this means that some jobs are at threat. I also know vast amounts of work is currently not done: there are no shortages of opportunity for gainful work in society.
And, of course I recognise the risk from ‘super-intelligence’, most especially within politics, where ‘normal-stupidity’ is commonplace.
More particularly, the risk of further concentration of economic power in the hands of a few corporations is especially worrying.
The continued absence of effective means to properly tax IT companies might become an ever-bigger issue.
That will be exacerbated by the growing need of government for revenue, most especially as it becomes the major source of new employment in the essential public services that will be the real foundation of this new economy.
He’s assuming that only the state, those public services, can do any of the new stuff. As opposed to the usual economic idea that it is entrepreneurs who figure out new combinations of economic assets to meet human desires. Or, the same statement, hoping the bureaucracy is going to do this is like waiting for Godot.
It’s precisely because we don;t know what AI can and will be used for, what other human wants and desires can be met, that we need to use market experimentation to find out.
I also know vast amounts of work is currently not done: there are no shortages of opportunity for gainful work in society
Candidly, he’s been avoiding said gainful work for six decades now.
Spud would probably suggest nationalising farms, and after outlawing heavy machinery giving every unemployed person a spoon and an index linked starting salary of £40k.
“….. that we need to use market experimentation to find out.”
And therein lies the nut of the issue of opposing philosophies. One group, which I agree with, figures you need a lot of experimentation to see what works. The other group thinks all that experimentation is wasteful and pointless when we already have bureaucrats and politicians who already know what needs to be done. Their record’s not good, but they never say die.
Has Murphy ever tackled the issue of empty shelves in the Soviet Union? Or are we just to assume that a ‘proper’ command economy has never been tried (i.e., one with Murphy commanding it)?
Paul: I expect he would frot himself silly at the thought of running ElyPlan!
‘Candidly, he’s been avoiding said gainful work for six decades now.’
Thank you Steve!!
I might add that as a former bureaucrat I firmly support private enterprise doing things. But perhaps that’s simply my laziness.
Murphy was not paying attention in his history lessons. We have had the famous example from Revolutionary France in the 18th century of the state curing unemployment by sending one gang of men to dig holes in the road and a second gang to fill them in again. So the answer is an obvious “Yes, we can imagine a curajus state rising to the challenge of creating employment to meet need. The result was so obviously worse than nothing that the people of France *chose* to replace their home-grown Murphyite rulers with a (?formerly, ?still) anti-French Corsican and made him Emperor so more dictatorial than the executed King had been.
The Soviet Union was more subtle aboutits “make-work” programmes.