Loomio
Wed 13 Jan 2016 9:26AM

Rushkoff: Rebooting work: Programming the Economy for People

ST Stacco Troncoso Public Seen by 484

Doug Rushkoff was kind enough to let us publish this, it's a great, concise read.

"Digital and robotic technologies offer us both a bounty of productivity as well as welcome relief from myriad repeatable tasks. Unfortunately, as our economy is currently configured, both of these seeming miracles are also big problems. How do we maintain market prices in a world with surplus productivity? And, even more to the point, how do we employ people when robots are taking all the jobs?"

Link: Rebooting work: Programming the Economy for People

WO

[email protected] Wed 13 Jan 2016 10:30AM

great article! thanks, @staccotroncoso !

JH

Jake Hansen Thu 14 Jan 2016 8:14AM

Yes, interesting topic! An attempt at answering your questions (by asking more questions;):
1. "How do we maintain market prices in a world with surplus productivity?"
a. What does "surplus productivity" mean in this context? Referring to how surplus is generally understood in economic theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus
b. Basically speaking, market prices are the result of demand and supply, it is a result, not a cause. So in that sense I do not understand the "maintain" part of "maintain market prices". Maintain demand and supply in some way then?

  1. "How do we employ people when robots are taking all the jobs?" a. There is a question: why should we employ people? Just go home and relax! ;) b. I believe the more fundamental question here is: (X) do we require pretty much every human being to produce value (and consequently earn money) for some part of their lives to have the right to live? (Y) Or do we allow larger groups of people or perhaps everyone not to produce value and still continue to live? I feel that this is a fundamental choice with consequences on how to set up 'the system' accordingly. Remark: at the moment we have of course people who do not produce value and hence 'work' at all, but that is only possible because the majority is working and can then support them. In the case the robots come, the idea is that this will shift. c. With (X): the challenge is to 'monetize' value as much as possible, so it stays or becomes part of the economic system, so you can trade and earn money. See Jaron Lanier's book "Who owns the future?" about how this is going into the wrong direction at the moment: value is in some industries largely 'demonetized', preventing people to earn money while they do deliver value. d. With (Y): the question that comes to mind is, how do we decide who gets to relax and who has to work? Can everyone decide that for themselves, and will that work out? A 'basic income' perhaps that everyone gets regardless, with which you can get by and if you want more stuff, you can add value and earn?
DR

Douglas Rushkoff Thu 14 Jan 2016 9:59PM

Yeah - some of these answers are in the piece itself (it's linked). And the rest are in my book, coming in March. Lanier gets close, but I'm actually more interested in taking activity off the books than putting it all back on. With a basic income guarantee, we could start looking at doing something other than monetizing value, which can create other problems.

JH

Jake Hansen Fri 15 Jan 2016 8:21AM

Alright, interesting. So does this mean you want to abandon the concept of trade altogether? As in: you have something of value that I would like to have and vice versa, so let's trade? If so, does that mean you will abandon ownership in the generic sense as well? Sounds like a challenging new system! :) Good luck with writing your book.

DR

Douglas Rushkoff Fri 15 Jan 2016 12:42PM

No - not at all! Lanier's proposal is to take things that are not valued monetarily now, and put them on the books. He's hoping people's social media profiles can be monetized by users instead of just the advertisers. My sense is that turning our social transactions into profit opportunities could change the nature of our social lives.

JH

Jake Hansen Fri 15 Jan 2016 3:16PM

Aha, ok. So as I understand your proposal is more nuanced: leave some things of value to be traded for money, other things of value exchange should become or be kept demonetized.

What Lanier is saying I think is that the problem is not that advertisers benefit, but that the web platforms monetize the value that users give away for free (or at least for a non-monetary small compensation). As I understand he does not only talk about social media profiles, but also other valuable products/content like documents, photos, music, being shared/distributed on-line, with the assumption that this will expand to other industries/professions like doctors and drivers.

TD

Thomas Dönnebrink Thu 21 Apr 2016 5:20AM

I guess what we should overcome is the tit-for-tat trade market logic which in our current extractive, explpitive system works like: "Give as little as possible and take as much as you can" (including taking it from current and past nature (fossile fuels), other people and future generations) we have to get to a system where everybody can, is allowed and is also intrinsicly motivated to "give what one can and take what one needs". The first is substractive "I/Me/Mine culture" that doesn't work in the long run while the other is sustainable "We/Us/Our culture".

DU

Pedro H. J. Nardelli Thu 21 Apr 2016 6:04AM

Regarding this "tit-for-tat" mindset, I suggest this book that I am reading nowadays: Prisoners of Reason. Her historical analysis of how the neo-liberal narrative of "sucking all you can" has been built and reproduced is quite interesting.

WO

[email protected] Fri 15 Jan 2016 8:59AM

the monetisation of a growing part of our live is seen by many as one of the problems of the neoliberal form of capitalism. Paul Mason is his last book, Postcapitalism, analyses the economic history and the emergence of the information economy, which causes its own collapse as peers can and are increasingly producing commons based alternatives.
Looking forward to your book, Douglas!

BH

Bob Haugen Fri 15 Jan 2016 12:29PM

@douglasrushkoff - thanks for popping in on Loomio! A pleasant surprise.

Load More