… only too many jobless people. Productivity gains are eating jobs faster then new jobs are generated by economic expansion (aka. Wachstum). I have said that now for quite some time. Fortunatelly Der Spiegel has now published some rather impressive numbers. In November 2005, compared to november 2004, the gross revenue of germans manufacturing industrial production grew by 6.6%, while the number of work hours needed actually shrank by 1%. Consequently, 78.200 jobs were lost.
While certainly there is some hope to generate new jobs in non-manufacturing industries, I would not count on that. The political mantra of “everybody who wants a job should get one” is no more then a hollow lie. We need new political solutions to the productivity problem, maybe some sort of “robot tax” is a possible solution to generate money to keep the unemployed financed.
If I look at the examples I know firsthand of actual industrial production, the potential for further rationalization and corresponding productivity gains are obvious. They are often just not yet implemented because they would require some long-term investments or the technology is not yet proven enough. Both conditions will not stop the next wave of robots for long, as more and more industries get into the innovation cycle of the IT industry.
Some small and mid-sized companies take another route, because the owners feel bad about firing the last few people they know and trust. They try to expand their production capacity with the same number of people, making probably someone else unemployed in a competing company that can not innovate or invest fast enough.
So, we end up with large parts of the population with no real job. We as a society need means to cope with that. Maintaining the status quo, where unemployment is a stigma that implies somehow that the unemployed are the only ones responsible for their fate, is cruel and dangerous. There is no way around a tax financed basic income for everybody and investments to channel the economically unwanted labor force into useful directions.
The basic income has huge implications, as it will make EU-style right of domicile difficult and make a couple of 100k unemployment-administration bureaucrats jobless. Probably, the states who introduce the basic income first will grab the chance to introduce biometric IDs for all citizens, as there obviously needs to be some way to not reduce the fraud from immigrants…
Update: Andreas also found the same numbers and has some interesting remarks on the same topic (in german).
I don’ t think it would be a good idea to implement a “robot tax”.
This tax would have to be that high to finance lost jobs, that many companies will leave the country. And even an agreement about implementing a worldwide tax could not be a solution. Wouldn’t it be better to share the amount of remaining work? People would be more motivated, capable and maybe better qualified (there would be more time left for further education).
Maybe it will encourage creativity and social action.
Our unprogressive society makes it hard to realize such ideas. But we have to think about completely new structures of society.
darwin dante veröffentlichte darüber bereits 1993 ein buch “5 stunden sind genug”, mit dem er anhand offizieller daten des statistischen bundesamtes nachrechnete, dass alle für das funktionieren der gesellschaftlichen aufgaben mit einer 5 stunden woche für ALLE zu erledigen sind. http://www.5-stunden-woche.de/
ich habe das buch sehr skeptisch gelesen, aber 10 stunden sind auf alle fälle drin, und das mit den damaligen daten. http://www.5-stunden-woche.de/
video-interview bei kanal b: http://kanalb.org/clip.php?clipId=1034 und http://kanalb.org/clip.php?clipId=1035
in seinem letzten newsletter schrieb er “Die Linke.WASG führt das Thema der 5-Stunden-Woche in den kommunalen
Wahlkampf in Frankfurt ein”.
in die richtung “hurra, endlich wird die arbeit knapp”, gehen auch verschiedene initiativen für ein bedingungsloses grundeinkommen, wie u.a. von politik-professor peter grottian ausgeführt: http://www.attac.de/hagen/sich_selber_arbeit.htm
Full ACK: http://fuckup.twoday.net/stories/1426897/
the main problem remains uncovered: the system itself. it’s no secret that capitalism cannot solve the problems of mankind, even worse, it introduced and introduces new problems. capitalism needs poor people; capitalism is the main reason for the people in africa dying of hunger. in fact, today enough food is produced to feed 12 billion (!) people, twice as much as there are. despite this fact, corporations say that we /need/ genetically engineered food to ‘produce more food and solve the hunger problem’. that’s just plain wrong. but it’s all about the profit, that’s the problem. well, i could write lots of text here, throwing dozens of arguments and examples into the discussion, but the fact remains: capitalism is a disease. if you try to place it in the biologists’ view (capitalism wants to grow infinitely, and if possible exponentially) you get: cancer. (which, please excuse my sarcasm, is a good thing for us as it says that capitalism will solve the problem of its existence on its own — as does cancer; unfortunately, the planet also won’t survive.)
most interestingly, when you try to see what is all about the ‘robot tax’ and a ‘5-hour-week’ you see that those are reglementations, obviously forced by society or the government (given that the government does not consist of >90% members of the capitalist class…). thus, you did the first step to socialism…
:)