The universal basic income or income: operating debate

[Ahmed]

Okay, I'll resume ...

The basic idea is that if we decrease the amount of human labor per unit of product, we decrease its abstract value, i.e. its ability to generate a profit, so we should not rely on automation to "compensate" for the income of excluded workers. In this reasoning, the substantial value of the commodity (its properties) is not taken into consideration.

I had, long ago (and I can not find it in the depths of the forum) gave the example of the introduction of the chainsaw into the local economy of a village in the north of the Nièvre: the first one made a lot of money, then the others also bought machines, which quickly led to generalized decrease in compensation per unit of volume (stere); in conclusion, the same amount of work now generated an identical abstract value for a much higher production ...

[Ahmed]

I continue a little, if that can clear things up ...
The prices of commodities are generally established (but there are exceptions) in correlation with "the quantity of socially necessary labor", as so aptly put it. Marx, and this quantity is obviously a function of the stage of technical development; as it is an evolutionary process, those who have, at a given moment, a head start benefit from a kind of rent effect, while a new equilibrium is established ...
It is this dynamic, which is fairly simple to grasp which gave birth to the "consumer society" and it is this same dynamic who will bury him ...

[Obamot]

I was too busy to participate these times. It feels a little bit better.

Okay, I'll resume ...

The basic idea is that if we decrease the amount of human labor per unit of product, we decrease its abstract value, i.e. its ability to generate a profit, so we should not rely on automation to "compensate" for the income of excluded workers. In this reasoning, the substantial value of the commodity (its properties) is not taken into consideration.

In this vein, I have always wondered why, in emerging countries (when we only pay them their resources for potters) they manage to survive year after year. It seems to me that I have found part of the answer. They are very poorly paid compared to here, but on the other hand, life is not expensive, and they are champions of the "D" system which means that they have a purchasing power that corresponds to local possibilities. . Obviously they are heavily penalized if they seek to do tourism to visit better-off countries. And obviously it is very shameful, not to say scandalous, that it is us who are taking advantage of the difference.
And you, how do you see that, how do you translate this disparity in terms of "abstract value"?
There is a lot of waiting in the "socially necessary»And material goods are often overpriced, so I rebalancing is not the same (ditto here in the less privileged social strata VS the well-off, except that here the less privileged - who are more and more the bulk of the troops - are doing less and less, while they are "considered wealthy"for southerners. The relationship is definitely not the same everywhere ....)

I had, long ago (and I can not find it in the depths of the forum) gave the example of the introduction of the chainsaw into the local economy of a village in the north of the Nièvre: the first one made a lot of money, then the others also bought machines, which quickly led to generalized decrease in compensation per unit of volume (stere); in conclusion, the same amount of work now generated an identical abstract value for a much higher production ...

We saw this same phenomenon with the arrival of Macintosh on the market. Those who had one in the mid-80s, were the kings ... They made a good living in publishing because few people understood the opportunity and still needed some expertise (mastery of networks, interfaces SCSI, software tips, drivers, etc. the routine for scholars at the time). Comparatively in the PéCé world they rotated it ... (you already needed good computer skills to be autonomous, while for a Mac, you just had to be a little resourceful and have relationships in the business to keep up to date) and Macs were worth it, the memory cost was € 1 per mega ...! But the advantage was that the owners were few ... And also the dedicated industrial equipment (which the Macintosh gradually replaced) was often worth ten times more ... It was a real niche market. Then the price of the machines went down (a bit like your chainsaw story) everyone was able to buy a Mac, and even today Macs have become SIN ... And no one earns almost anything, since n '' which Mac / PC does the job ... (and that we find these toys at 000'1 or 000'2 € when at the time it could be worth between 000 to 10x more ..)

[Ahmed]

On the first point, we must indeed perceive the reality of these countries as a source of income for our countries, because of the inequality of the terms of trade and the perception of the rent of the debt. As far as populations are concerned, very low income partly corresponds to the low price of basic necessities, but this does not entirely explain the survival of populations (even if these figures are used by international organizations to support their reports ...), as you noted, intra-family financial assistance (in the broad sense) allows for redistribution; moreover, mutual assistance is an important rule which promotes resilience. This last aspect being only a remnant of what the monetarization of exchanges has powerfully contributed to destroy ... Here, the progression of the importance of abstract value directly impacts real wealth by subjecting populations to its dictates and plundering local resources.

On the second point, I remember a friend who told me about the discussion he had with a small local industrialist who had "understood everything": my friend complained about the high cost of professional capital goods, to which the industrialist objected to him, that on the contrary, it was an excellent thing, since it limited competition as much ...

[Christophe]

Gironde: The department wants to be the first to test the basic income

ECONOMY An experiment on this universal income without compensation could be set up in 2018 ...

Jean-Luc Gleyze, PS president of the Gironde departmental council, reaffirmed this week that the department would be the first in France to test the basic universal income. The New Aquitaine region, for its part, launched a “reflection” on the subject. 20Minutes tells you how it would work.

(...)

http://www.20minutes.fr/bordeaux/194265 ... evenu-base

[Obamot]

I will say a horrible thing, but if the situation were to become more and more Americanized in France (either after the conflagration of the suburbs set on fire by setting cars on fire, or even new conflagrations amid new social crises, would probably not be far from the foreseeable scenario of the introduction of RMI ...) as with the key to new regular terrorist attacks, a growing destabilization of the situation between communities (rise of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, etc.) we would see fairly quickly this type of measure applies unconditional income, and not only in France ...

And curiously you know what? They would find the money ... !!!

PS: a clue, or is the situation in Marseille? Is part of the city still out of state and police control?

[Christophe]

If even Elon says it ...

Tesla boss says creation of universal income is inevitable

With the arrival of worker robots and artificial intelligence, the boss of Tesla believes that states will have to pay people who will no longer have jobs in the future.

Universal income has gained a new supporter. While in France the debate on the establishment of a salary paid for life by the state divides the political class and arouses the disapproval of the French, the boss of Tesla believes him that sooner or later it will be necessary to create one. In an interview with CNBC, Elon Musk said he saw no other solution in the long term than the adoption of such a measure.


“There's a very good chance that we'll end up having a Universal Basic Income, or something like that, because of the automation. I don't see how otherwise, and that's what should happen I think. . "

The boss of Tesla here refers to the robotization that is emerging in the tertiary sector. After industry, machines are starting to gain ground in services. Whether with the autonomous car (the end of taxis and VTC?), Robots in catering like this machine that makes hamburgers or even the multitude of software based on artificial intelligence and capable of performing simple tasks (a bot that responds to a client) but tomorrow more and more complex. Machines that would be able to make huge productivity gains and thereby render human labor obsolete.

82% of total French state spending

Musk anticipates the emergence of a leisure society. "People will have time to do other things, more complex, more interesting things with more free time."

The problem with Elon Musk's projection is that nobody can say that the robotization that comes will make human jobs disappear. Most predictions of job destruction related to automation are based on a 2013 study by two researchers from Oxford Martin School (Frey and Osborne) who estimated that 47% of total American jobs were threatened with a deadline one or two decades. But a new study published this year by the OECD makes a forecast with only 9% of jobs that could be affected. Why such a difference? The OECD estimates, unlike Frey and Osborne, that only a few tasks will be automated per worker and therefore the destruction will be less.

The second difficulty of Elon Musk's scenario concerns the financing of this universal basic income. Take the example of France. Paying 535 euros (the equivalent of the RSA) to 51 million French people and half of the 15 million minors would cost the state 376 billion euros per year. This would therefore represent 82% of total state expenditure (463 billion euros in 2015)! And if we removed all the social minima, the activity bonus, family allowances and housing benefits, it would still represent 306 billion euros. In short, the machines will have to make colossal gains in productivity and create enough wealth to finance this universal income desired by Elon Musk.

http://bfmbusiness.bfmtv.com/emploi/pou ... 56668.html

[Ahmed]

Aboutelon musk reported above reflect the understanding of part of the employers of a contradiction in our economy: destroying the jobs of more and more people, and therefore their purchasing power, is in complete contradiction with the functioning of the market . However, this is a very partial vision which ignores the "creation of value", a delicate notion if there is one! This is wonderfully illustrated by the last sentence of the article:

In short, the machines will have to make colossal gains in productivity and create enough wealth to finance this universal income desired by Elon Musk.

Here is exposed a considerable illusion: if the machines seem to create abstract wealth (abstract since for them it would be a question of abounding the UK), it is because, dynamically, at the moment when a productive increase appears in In a given sector, the innovator benefits for a short time from a rent effect. In fact, thanks to this increased productivity, it is able to deliver goods to the market at a cost price lower than the production price of other producers who still have "normal" productivity; but this advantage is short-lived, since the other competitors will have to force themselves either to reach the new level of productivity or to disappear. In the case, the result is (among other things) a reduction in selling prices, since it is necessary to sell more goods to achieve an overall profit greater than the initial state (a productive increase at a constant level of production would not pay additional investment). In the end, if a difference in the creation of abstract wealth appears, it is only the cost of the new machines which is gradually incorporated into the mass of products ... There is therefore nothing to expect from this putative windfall, since , to come back to the quoted sentence, to "colossal gains in productivity" can only correspond to profits in free fall, especially since they will not have customers in front ...

The UK, in this partial vision means implicitly recognizing the existence of a consumer work, work necessary to complete the productive cycle, but unpaid so far (and it could not be, any more than the destruction of natural wealth can not be compensated!), what is superbly ignored is that only the human labor (apart from the rent effect) is likely to produce abstract value. What illustrates this fact is, contrary to the conclusions of classical economists, that to overcome the evolutionary blockage present of the production of abstract value due to the destruction of jobs already carried out, it is called (in a way and in a hidden way) to the work of future generations by an absurd anticipation, via the financial industry.

[sen-no-sen]

There is therefore nothing to be expected from this putative windfall, since, to return to the quoted sentence, to "colossal productivity gains" can only correspond to profits in free fall, especially as they will not have no customers in front ...

Very just!
And the phenomenon is not new, especially in the agricultural sector where automation leads to a decline in the quality of products and an ever greater debt for producers, and this with a drastic drop in the number of professionals (less than 610 farmers in 000 against 2015 million in 2!).
The UK should therefore play the role of plaster on a wooden leg.
In such a case there will necessarily be the establishment of a double economy.

More broadly, it would be interesting to position the arrival of such a device in time and to place it in the deterministic logic that drives contemporary history.
Several elements seem to predict the advent of a quantitative technological leap (NBIC).
As chance is not on the agenda in the system, it is a safe bet that the UK is therefore part of a logic of neutralization.

[Ahmed]

In the agricultural sector, indeed, a "race of the red queen" was observed, with a "modernization" (and the debt that goes with it) which stimulated production and profit for a time, until new investments become necessary when the relative lead is reduced, despite the ejection of many "players" from the system ...

More broadly, it would be interesting to position the arrival of such a device in time and to place it in the deterministic logic that drives contemporary history.

The UK is probably the only possibility which exists to reconcile intellectually the contradiction between the planned destruction of work and a society which had made it its foundation; this must obviously be understood as a purely immanent reflection, that is to say, restricted to the confined space of the logic of the functioning of current society.
It is because of a refusal of this limitation, of this logical confinement, that I refute the relevance of the UK which appears to me as a by-product of this mental category specific to our time, just like "development". sustainable ", the" energy transition "or even the pseudo" democracy "... a fallacious way of expressing a reality to better disguise it vis-à-vis the conscience and thus conceal the mechanical operation of an underlying system .