Even most progressive people have been brainwashed into blindness about the solution to extreme wealth disparity
This is an issue I’ve observed and written about for many years but a fresh example brought it to mind recently. Ezra Klein conducted an interview with Klya Scanlon for the New York Times. She had some good ideas worth reading – especially on AI (artificial intelligence). I’ve also often valued Ezra’s writing on economics and have corresponded with him on that. But at one point in this recent piece they both gave an excellent example of a pervasive blindness we cannot afford.
They were worrying if AI might lead to a huge increase in unemployment among young adults who would otherwise be starting careers. One thing they noted which is sometimes proposed is a guaranteed minimum income, but neither of them liked that, both because it would likely be too little income and because people gain meaning from work. They both expressed being totally stumped by the problem. Referring to politicians and policy people, “none of them have an inkling of a policy answer for it. Nothing.” “How do you think we should address it?” “I have no idea.” “Even in talking to the policymakers, there hasn’t been anything floated? Is this something that we’re all just going to stare at each other until it’s here?”
This problem of AI, and the advance of technology generally, taking jobs, and the problem of extreme wealth disparity, the insanely rich while teachers live in their cars, are two parts of the same problem. The thinking goes something like this. Working people often aren’t making enough to live decently, and technology is, in the short run at the very least, going to knock many people out of work, so just the general running of the economy is not a solution. The only other thing that comes to mind is some partial socialism, like a guaranteed basic income, but that seems like a very bad solution. It’s a total stumper of a problem. What to do?
Here’s the solution. Pay people.
The enormous wealth of this nation comes from work. Yes, much happens by way of investors and stock market wealth and investments that grow, but all of that ultimately comes from work. If you buy solid long-term stocks you’re investing in companies that actually do things. If you invest in bonds it goes to your local government borrowing it to build schools. It all ultimately comes from work and production. So all the work that all the people do is creating a tremendous amount of wealth. The little money of the teachers in their cars, and the middle people doing okay, and those so wealthy if they put 90% of it in gold on a boat and sank it their lavish lives would continue the same. So what the typical worker does in a day evidently creates a lot of wealth. Mostly for someone else. So if they were actually paid relative to the wealth their jobs are creating? Wow!
The rich could still be rich. Back in the 1950s when white guys with union jobs were getting paid decently the rich still managed to be rich. And profit is a good thing that owners should make. Pulling together all your money (or more likely money borrowed from others) and risking it all to try to make a going company has to bring enough profit to make it worth doing that. But it doesn’t need to be more than enough to make it worth doing. If we extended what those white guys (like myself) were making to other genders and other colors, so every working family could have a spouse work part time while the kids are young, and own a home, and assume finances would be okay, for themselves and for their kids, the rich could still be lavish and profitable enough to make it worth doing.
What about all those jobs that might be lost to technology? You know, when a programming company lays off half its programmers to replace them with AI bots, it wouldn’t do that unless it was going to make just as much profit as ever, probably more, but with fewer workers. So the laid-off half of the programmers lose in a big way. The other half might end up making less because they’re scared to ask for more because their jobs are shaky too, but the company will be doing great because of less payroll expense. So if the company can make as much as ever with half the programmers then what those remaining programmers are doing must be worth even that much more than before the AI help. Rather than laying off half of them why not keep them all but let them work half as many hours, but still get the same pay? The same income is still flowing into the company. The programmers are creating all that wealth. The owners can still be making a very nice profit. Why should all the tech benefit go to the top? It was some similar programmers who developed all that AI anyway. The benefit should be spread evenly.
These ideas are not complete or perfect but they are a very big step in the direction of the only real solution. What we very much need to make ourselves aware of is how almost non-existent such ideas are in the public conversation even among progressive people. But I have to say that they should not be called progressive ideas because they are not about right people or left people. They are about people. Period.
That such ideas are not in the range of things that even occur to most us, or most leaders, wonks, pundits and others looking for solutions is a screamingly big indicator of how our collective thinking has been blinded.
Oh, and BTW, it’s also a gigantically big opportunity for some political party.
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