From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Mon Sep 07 1998 - 06:32:12 MDT
Damien Broderick asked us to address the problem of unemployment in the first
world. Then, in a message dated 98-09-04 13:50:59 EDT, Hal Finney wrote:
> In my opinion, extropianism is not an ideology or an economic system
> like capitalism or communism. It is a personal philosophy.
>
> Rather then asking what kinds of macro-economic changes extropianism
> would advise in order to solve a global problem, it is more appropriate
> to ask how extropianism advises us to structure our own lives to avoid
> problems of structural unemployment.
>
> In that sense, extropian principles like boundless expansion,
> self transformation, dynamic optimism, etc., offer many suggestions.
> Exploit new technology, look ahead of the curve, remain flexible, don't
> get stuck in ruts, etc. Someone who commits to these principles is
> going to be much less likely to find themselves becoming obsolete than
> the average person.
With which I agree. By and large, extropiansim per se is a personal
philosophy that says less about "society" than it does about "the individual".
This is not to say that extropians find society at large or social problem
irrelevant, but simply that THIS particular mode of thought and evaluation may
not offer much, if any answer for questions that are not about the individual.
That said, I think Hal's also made a very good point that extropian values are
the kinds of values that unemployed INDIVIDUALS would find useful.
A problem with ending the discussion there is that it doesn't say much about
how to transmit extropian values to people who don't know about them (even if
they may not be called "extropianism") and who are indisposed, as a matter of
their individual biographies, to accept them even if they DO learn of them.
It doesn't hurt to think about this problem in extropian terms. So, over the
first cup of coffee, here's a take at "extropian" solutions to structural
unemployment:
Earlier in the discussion, Robin Hanson suggested a taxonomy of unemployment
(and suggested that we talk about only one sub-issue, a wise suggestion I
unwisely ignore):
> 1) Search - one is between jobs, and doesn't want to grab the first job
> that comes along. Similarly, companies don't want to hire the first
> candidate that comes along.
This is probably the easiest aspect of the issue to address with the
"extropian toolkit". Even the mainstream business press now accepted the
reality of a true "information revolution" and we're likely to see more and
more improvements in quality as well as quantity. The abstract problem of
matching people to jobs is one that will become increasingly less difficult as
time passes. I see advertisements for web-based job searching tools all the
time. The information cost of finding a job should drop to near zero in the
mid-term future (20 years) as access to near-perfect job information is
available to even the poorest in the first world. Problem solved :-)
> 2) Minimum wages - supply & demand may not meet with imposed wage bounds.
> The price employers would be willing to pay may be below the bound.
This is one where ideological issues and practical politics impede progress,
or at least experimentation. Both of the mainstream political parties in the
U.S. accept a minimum wage without question, and I have no doubt whatsoever
that the same is true throughout the first world.
Clever people who want to work or to create jobs below the minimum wage get
around the limits in some cases. Some entry-level job-types escape the effect
of minimum wage constraints through de-facto independent contracting. I'm
thinking of many kinds of domestic personal service, such as one's yard
workers or swimming pool workers. But the kinds of entry-level work that
could lead to the improvement of the working skills of unemployed people in a
first world economy are the very ones most likely to be effected by minimum
wage constraints.
Although it has little chance of being adopted without other fundamental
structural changes, an extropian solution to this problem would be to create
experimental "free enterprise zones" where minimum wage constraints were
significantly relaxed or did not apply at all.
If one accepts that basic life-sustaining products and services will become
cheaper with advanced automation and manufacturing techniques, the pressure to
maintain minimum wages should abate. If many of us who expect such decreases
are right, one should look for a lowering of a fairly-calculated "poverty
line" sometime in the mid-term future; say, sometime just beyond 20 years from
now. If this happens, then the time would then be right to move for
experimentation with a lowering of the minimum wage, with concomitant positive
effects on unemployment.
> 3) Capital constraints - people may not have assets to invest in their
> own education and training, and so may settle for less than their
> potential. Others who might invest may be stopped by bankruptsy laws
> which prevent effective indentured servitude.
As I've pointed out before, credit co-ops seem to me to be a very extropian
solution to this problem. Organizations like Grameen Bank offer at least one
avenue of progress on capital accumulation for people at the lowest ends of
the spectrum. Over-regulation of the financial industry, especially
regulation created by a state structure too much under the thrall of
established, large financial institutions, is a major barrier to use of this
tool. Ironically, second- and third world countries, with less "efficient"
financial regulatory mechanisms, have had better luck with credit co-ops like
Grameen.
Robin's reference to bankruptcy laws and indentured service raises a much more
complex set of issues. I can't help but think that limitations on creditor
retaliation for default have at least some positive effects on entrepreneurial
motivation. Whether those positive effects are offset by the negative effect
of limitations on credit is a FACTUAL question, but one which would be
exceedingly difficult to subject to empirical analysis. (I don't doubt that
economic MODELS can be created to support either conclusion :-)
> 4) Time runs out - if your industry/career gets smaller, and you're near
> retirement, it may not be worth retraining you.
Another area that can be ameliorated with application of extropian ideas and
values. First, a lowering of information barriers generally should make
retraining easier and less costly. Second, the kinds of work that older
people can do should be increasing as value shifts away from manual labor and
toward mental labor. Third, with increasing life spans, "retirement age" will
steadily rise, while at the same time the social custom of sabbaticals should
further erode a unitary image of a single "life/career".
> 5) Bad luck - if your industry/career gets less in demand, you may have to
> accept being less in demand. Insurance can mitigate this loss.
Insurance is the solution. How it's implemented is of course another whole
set of questions. Monolithic state-supported unemployment insurance tends to
be inflexible and a poor tool for creating the kind of loss-history/premium
feedback that is essential for effective operation of insurance mechanisms.
An extropian approach would be to encourage wherever possible the creation and
implementation of a diverse marketplace of private unemployment insurance.
> 6) Poverty - if you live in a time/place with little capital, and moving
> is prohibitively expensive, capital may be too expensive to make it
> worth training you.
This is at least a two-fold problem. As I point out above, credit co-ops are
one tool that poor people can use to accumulate capital. Second, as
information-work becomes more important, locality becomes less important.
Thus we see developments like the information workers in the second and third
world (I'm thinking of India and Russia, and just encountered the same
phenomenon in Mexico) who telecommute to work in the first world. This is
high-end work, of course, but is at least one facet of a solution to this
aspect of the problem.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<burchg@liddellsapp.com>
Attorney ::: Director, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must
be driven into practice with courageous impatience."
-- Admiral Hyman Rickover
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