« A sharecropper and the Nazis | Main | You say you want a revolution? »
Robots and a new economy
By admin | June 9, 2008
Adam Smith, back in 1776 wrote “The Wealth of Nations” which earned him the title of “father of modern economics.” It was an eye opener at the time, and laid the ground work for an era of economic expansion on a global scale like never before seen.
I actually read this book years ago for an economics class. Boring at the time, but a treasure of ideas. One thing that Smith seems to spend a lot of time with is labor. Divisions of labor, increased productivities, and ultimately a bigger economic pie which benefits everyone. The idea of wealth creation through productivity and interaction was a departure from zero based economies where you grab and protect your wealth.
But one of the things that makes his work show signs of obsolescence is the modern trend, starting in the early 1900’s and really taking off with the use of micro chips and computers, of increased use of technology to save labor.
Smith went as far as calling labor the real currency which measures the value of all goods. He wrote, “The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.”
But what supercedes Smith’s economic model i a post modern economic system where labor is of no real value? I have worked in manufacturing most of my career, and the degree by which computers operate machines is staggering compared to what it was 20-30 years ago. Back in the 60’s, the value of a manufactured product was often 70% labor. These days it’s pretty common to see 10%.
Machines are doing the work. And with robotics on the horizon, I see a society where machines do most everything. Driving trucks, performing surgery, fighting wars..a robot that can react to its environment in the way the human nervous system does will create an endless list of things humans can hand over to robots.
But how will goods and services produced by machines get distributed to people? There will still be a demand jobs for people that program robots, and maintain them, still even that will eventually be done by other robots.
Will this lead to the ultimate utopia where people pursue what interest them instead of money to feed and clothe themselves and buy stuff? Will this be heaven? Or will capitalist just buy up all the robots and use them to redistribute wealth from society to themselves?
Old “isms” tend to fall apart in a robot based society. We need a new economic model that can accomodate the radical changes brought about by machines displacing human labor.
Topics: Ramblings |