| > You are oversimplifying a lot of the problems. I only have so much space here, and I only have so much time to
actually think these things through. So I'm just going to ignore this
fully general counter argument. > And saying that the problems won't even arise until we start to
sell these cars is just nonsense. Let me put it this way: if no self-driving car is ever sold, these
won't be a problem. These problems are conditional on a working
self-driving car actually existing in the first place. The only
problem right now is getting the car to drive. Now of course, foreseeable future problems do influence current
decisions. But let's not get into Timeless Decision Theory. --- > Also enforcing a 4 day work-week? How does this lower unemployment,
except on the paper? Why wouldn't it? Speaking for about 400 actual companies of various size in France, the
slight increase in hourly productivity does not match the rather sharp
drop in hours per week per employee. To keep their total production
from going down, they had to (and did) hire more people (about 15%, I
guess, it depends). It meant more employment. In the real world. Now. Also, the salaries were maintained. No pay cut. And the costs did
not increase either. This is because they have a deal which allows
them to pay less taxes (specifically, those who go to our national
unemployment insurance). So, so increased costs and no pay cut. In the real world. Now. The only thing that's only on paper right now is the macro-economic
calculation: what if everyone did the same? So far, it checks out: it
doesn't cost nor bring any money. You just have more people working a
bit less. --- There is this saying that employment is not a cake, that more work
spurs more employment or something. But at any given point in time,
it is a cake. Basically, work equals demand divided by
productivity. In a consumption society, to have more work, either you
increase demand, or you lower productivity. There's limits to the
first, and the second one is Ludism. So there's a point where you
have to divide work among the workers somehow. You can let the market
deal with it, and that gives you unemployment, or you can enforce
shorter work weeks. Unemployment is bad, because it drives down demand, which ultimately
drives down work, which under the current system increases
unemployment… One of the causes of World War II by the way. Shorter work weeks on the other hand, provided there's no pay cut,
drives demand up, through the sudden decrease in unemployment.
Also, less unemployment means better salary negotiations, which means
more money to the workers, and less to the "stakeholders". (Mind you,
it can go too far and stifle investment. Currently however, workers
get 10% less of what they did 30 years ago. And that money don't tend
to go to investment. It mostly goes to the Global Casino.) --- Source: http://www.roosevelt2012.fr/ (In French, sorry. I hope
automatic translations are good enough.) |