The Day Of Reckoning Is Near!

Here is yet another explanation of big scale economic changes taking place in the “developed world”----the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few as technology replaces workers.

While productivity continues to grow exponentially, worker’s employment and share of the growing profits and employment continues to fall! 

The day of reckoning is near!

Who is going to consume all the output from those machines when few people work?

Is anyone thinking of how to keep the economy working when few people have disposable income, consumption falls, and all those companies without sales shutter their doors because of lack of business?

If not!  Revolution is at hand!

And here is the full story why Canadian Workers should be angry enough to drive that revolution!

Shangra Lai is near!

The best of our world's future Shangra Lai is near, when robotics and computerized technology will replace most human work, and unchain us all from the imprisonment of work---replacing what we have to do with what we want to do.   

Paid work is a recent phenomenon in human history only arising in the last 200-300 years, while unpaid slavery started in our earliest civilizations and co-exists with paid work in some societies even today.  Before work was paid, it was mostly individual or group subsistence in a sharing society. 

The challenge in the new future will be for humanity to adjust to productive use of leisure time,  

I do believe that without human jobs, a fairer sharing of economic wealth will result through guaranteed income plans which will necessarily arise to keep the economy afloat.  This will result in a greater equity and higher living standards for all and poverty, greed, crime, war, disease, etc. all will be eliminated...all part of our future "civilized" Shangra Lai.

As a transition to a jobless world, I believe that the work week, which hasn't been adjusted downward in 60 years from 40 hours per week despite the arrival of computerized technology and robotics, should be reduced to a level, perhaps full time work of 20 hours per week, to reduce growing unemployment levels and to allow all to job-share and profit from the new technology as well as to provide all learning opportunity to adjust to more leisure time.  Also the increased productivity of the computer age should allow pay to be tied to productivity rather than hours worked.

I am pleased that Elon Musk has recently stated that he too agrees that some form of guaranteed income is inevitable as technology steals most jobs.  

Musk states he is not sure of funding mechanisms for the universal guaranteed income plans but this is a topic I have given thought to, and a post on this site of my thoughts and ideas on the topic is being prepared for an upcoming posting.

Ontario proposes major test of guaranteed minimal annual income plan

Ontario is poised to become ground zero for what may be the largest pilot project yet to test the notion of a basic income in North America.

In a discussion paper released Thursday, Ontario’s special adviser on basic income suggests topping up incomes of the working poor and replacing the province’s meagre and rule-bound social assistance program with a monthly payment of at least $1,320 for a single person, or about 75 per cent of the poverty line.

I see this as a trial study of economic systems that will be forced to emerge widely in the near future to supply consumption to keep economies afloat as most workers are replaced by robotics and other computerized technology.

"Should the government pay to keep you alive?"

An interesting debate--"Should the government pay to keep you alive?" While your immediate answer may be, "Hell No! People have to get off their asses and look after themselves!"---this traditional attitude is being increasingly challenged by thinkers on both the left and right extremes of the political spectrum as the world becomes increasingly dependent on smart machines rather than human labour to do most of the work. This article will challenge your perspective about the validity of your long held views as we are propelled into the new world! Get ready to "TAKE OFF!"

Ontario Liberals to Test Minimum Guaranteed Income Plan

As we rapidly lose work worldwide as technology steals most jobs, policy makers must devise ways of supporting the many jobless citizens and Ontario is planning to "test-drive" a minimum guaranteed income plan.  This is a very positive move as the first stage of the transition to the upcoming future of few jobs.  In past experiments, partly with the Mincom Plan in Dauphin Manitoba and others in the world, it has been found to be cheaper and more effective and efficient to replace the many various welfare and other social support programs with the one program guaranteeing a minimum income for all.

People Stuck In the Past Threaten Our Future

The following comment was written by an an individual, a far right leaning conservative too caught up in the narrow dogma of traditional conservatism, an individual who obviously looks backward in trying to preserve the world as it was rather than adapting to what it will be.

"Socialism is the greatest threat to our nation, our freedoms, and our democratic institutions. It must be fought at all levels, and those who show support for such a totalitarian means of governance should be driven to the margins of our society. No less than this will save our country from the tyranny of collectivist ideology."

I responded—

"What a bunch of drivel Dean. The real threats to the nation are joblessness, inequality, greed, lack of opportunity, corporate fraud, concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, unfair employment practices (35% of Canadian workforce employed in part time, contract, and casual employment cutting 35% of workers out of the consumption of big ticket items thus adversely affecting the economy)...and the problem is getting worse as technology and robotics steals more---and eventually all jobs.

When few work, we'll have to pay people without jobs just to keep up consumption to keep the economy afloat.  Without consumption, the entire economy would go belly-up!

The future is coming fast---and the new times and new conditions will require new thinking and new answers---and the societies stuck with old ideas that fail to transition to the new world will be doomed.

Watch the "present" of auto production and try to find the workers making cars these days!  I'm trying to figure out, with this reality, how to make sense of the neo-con statement that wants to preserve a past that no longer exists...LOL!

Robots Make Cars

Today's car manufacturing is done in large part by robots. Check out the amazingly futuristic process.

CHANNEL.NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM

A Model European Society for North America to Emulate

 “Where to Invade Next" is an eye-opening Michael Moore social commentary documentary available on Netflix. 

Moore travels to many forward thinking progressive European countries to find fantastic social ideas about running a great country...and discovers all the great things are originally American ideas not currently practised there because America is a place that presently structures with "the me" in mind while the forward thinking societies structure everything with "the we" in mind.  

This film reveals what can and is being done in progressive and caring societies…and probably foretells the future “Shangri-La” world when most work is done by technology requiring little human labour.

A sample of great ideas being practised are free university education, corporate boards require composition of 50% workers, prisons with unarmed guards rehabilitative rather than punitive, strong sense of female equality, short work days, universal health care, generous social services like paid maternity leave for child daycare, generous pay, working conditions, and holidays, etc.   In Germany, the company even funds worker’s honeymoons.

Workers are treated generously as equals with respect and dignity---rather than slave-like peons as in America.

A story well-told by Michael Moore….but something greedy North American employers in the world’s wealthiest economy say they can’t afford!

This is truly a work world of the future....today!