a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2490 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Homelessness up 26% in LA YoY, 10% in Seattle , *61%* among LA youth

    "well, capitalism has issues, throw it all out!"

I'm saying that one of the conditions that capitalism springs from is wage labor. It's perfect for a system that uses price to allocate resources.

Unions fight to strengthen wage laborers. Welfare provides them with a basic social safety net. They augment wage labor.

Automation is coming. It isn't augmenting. It's replacing.

Maybe we get UBI. That creates a new social class.

Maybe we don't. That swells an existing class that started this discussion.

Either way, it's going to be quite a large change. Societies are a process, yes that process seeks stability, but every so often they hit an inflection point and tip in a new direction.

That's what gave rise to capitalism in the first place. It is a process that stemmed from a change in the patterns of human activity.