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I find it ironic that most people see europe as more liberal than the USA yet most people I know who move there are staunch conservatives who move there because the policies they care about and the people themselves are overall **less** liberal than the USA.
It seems very few people even realize that by many measures europe is more conservative rather than liberal. A prime example of this would be the taxation scheme which in much of europe has a lower ratio between the poor and the rich classes (closer to flat tax).
@freemo Which policies you have in mind? I think that both economic and political policies of Europe are much more liberal than in USA (there are some exceptions and mostly in eastern europe, [hello Poland!]).
Why is taxation scheme example of liberality? I would say its not about how much one taxes rich vs poor, but about how that taxed money is then distributed.
@vnarek
Well its important to understand what liberal and conservative mean. I think they tend to be inaccutate terms since liberal generally is used to refer to neoliberals specifically. In other words liberal is generally used as a synonym for democratic socialism. The primary principles of liberalism and socialism is a large degree of government regulation and oversight as well as using taxation to redistribute wealth from the rich. Conservatism generally has at its central point the opposite, minimal government regulation and intervention and relying on free markets.
Taxation is relevant as the usa has a more progressive tax scheme, that ia, a scheme intending to put a higher tax ratio between poor and rich in an attempt to redistribute wealth.
We find the same pattern in other areas. Europe is generally much more noninterventionist when it comes to foreign affairs, which again is along the lines of small governance associated with the right.
@freemo Wikipedia defines liberal as someone who is for free economy without goverment interventions + individual rights/equality.
From what you said earlier I deduced that you are using liberalism as synonym for social democracy and used your definition in my last answer.
It is not about tax collection, but distribution. Taxes that are collected in europe are distributed via strong welfare systems for health care, education, and social funding. USA does not really have this kind of safety nets.
@vnarek Yes the wikipedia uses the classical definition of liberal. This is not what most people in the USA today mean when they say liberal, they usually mean neo-liberal, which is effectively the opposit of that.
Free economy (free markets) with minimal government intervention would be more in line with modern day conservatisim in america, or classical liberals
They are very confusing terms for that very reason.
The spending is a relevant point, of course, to some degree. Except I wouldnt argue welfare as being the same as redistribution of wealth.. a flat (or flatter) tax system that feeds those who starve isnt really redistributing wealth to any significant degree. That just keeps the poor from starving and does little to nothing to eliminating the rich from the population.
@freemo @adi_k Yeah that would be nice. Proper education that is on par with education given to richer folks is essential. I'm still interested in the result of the experiment that Finland did two years back. Not everyone wants to be in jobs that are profitable and we need those people too so still some wealth redistribution is needed to guarantee good life to most of the people.
I am personally really interested in cooperatively owned companies, but still did not have enought time to do my research.
I dont think people wanting to do low-paid jobs is really a good argument. Most people would probably love to do a low-paid job that requires little skill im sure... hell most people would probably love a job where they watch TV all day too.. just because you want that sort of job doesnt mean society has an obligation to pay you for it.
As for us needing such jobs... somewhat, for now, but they are quickly being replaced by technology. but the fact is taht there are clearly more people who want to do those jobs than there is money to pay them well. thats exactly why their low paid. So we still need to get most people away from performing such jobs.
I feel most low-skill jobs should be focused on people who are handicapped and really cant do normal jobs. Those people need jobs within their means but we dont need people doing these jobs en masse.
@adi_k Cant say i agree
The market is designed to ensure the people who continually invest in themselves to have the most marketable (needed) skills are the ones who generate the income.
Sure business owners make a lot of money, but then we have the best programmers in the world (just workers) making 300K a year too.
I'd argue wealth distribution, will always follow the distribution of people who have those marketable skills. Meaning you will always see people who are simple labourers with little or no skills (skills that dont require a life time of study) will be low income, and those who do invest a lifetime of study into their skills will be high income. The latter being a small portion of the population is exactly why wealth disparity is very high. We are probably talking 1% of the population who are actually motivated enough to invest in their own skills to that extent.
The geni index doesnt "always go up" it just tends towards the distribution i mentioned and usually other artificial wealth distribution schemes are employed to slow it reaching that point. In other words, with no social programs of any kind eventually the geniindex would have settled but we just never get there.
My solution is to enact a form of welfare that tries to change that dynamic. To ensure people get the sort of assistance they need to more than 1% of the population are pursuing being highly skilled in the first place.
@freemo "can't say I agree[..]market designed to reward those who self-invest[..] sure the rich make money but some programmers (workers) earn 300k.."
Could you name me any significant period of time where the "earnings from capital/earnings from labour" actually went DOWN? Would you ever invest in automation that actually made you rely on MORE expensive and numerous workers for the same productivity?
I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying but I'm making a more precise and specific claim, the sample does not address the statistical trend. The 300k programmer is part of the equation, he plugs more holes than he creates in the capital concentration bucket, which is why he is paid 300k.
The ability to make money using capital and with less labour is actually not a bad thing, but its benefits are way too concentrated, the amount of influence is starting to significantly change policy and government, regardless of whether it is the democrats or the republicans in power the ruling class always wins.
@adi_k yes, as I said the geni coeffecient in the USA decreased significantly from 1930 - 1970
Automation has been going on for thousands of years. It is generally a myth that it hurts the economy in the way you describe when you really think about it. The thing is most of us are really poor at understanding or identifying automation historically, partly because we see it as so common place today.
For example one of the earlier forms of automation would be sewage and plumbing. It used to be that we dug holes and hired people to dig those holes and literally in some cases haul carts of poop from one place to another. But then plumbing was invented, basically a form of automation. Now instead of hole diggers or people with carts hauling human waste we had pipes that did it all automatically. Yet as always the economy kept chugging along and jobs just changing hand. Instead of people with carts now we have plumbers, and metal workers, and people in iron mines to make the pipes, some of them became city engineers, and othes just moved on to other jobs.
Automation at the level we see today (but in very different forms) have been going on for thousands of years, its not the issue people think it is, in the end jobs will always keep existing they will just move from low skill to high skill.
@freemo the automation argument is completely valid,The automation claim is simple:
1. Humans have only 2 things to offer in terms of productive potential: physical and cognitive labour.
2. _ALL_ physical labour has been automated, so people moved to cognitive tasks like gardening and scientific research.
(Notice gardening is under cognitive labour, the component of gardening that is yet to be automated is the cognitive component, the physical component of that job can be done for less than a cent an hour.
3. Computers start to automate cognitive tasks too, so people start to move from low degree of freedom tasks to higher degrees of freedom. (DOF has nothing to do with what people find difficult ex: multiplying two million digit numbers has a lower degree of freedom than recognizing a cat in an image)
4. Humans have a limited number of DOF to offer, there is nothing to say that AI will stop before that limit, more likely it will proceed way beyond that.
5. Unemployment will become a problem waaay before the scenario in (4.) We have to remember that during previous automation waves there were mass riots and a lot of suicides.
6. *And this is the most important point, the market has attack record of _never_ catering to people without productive potential* .
Thus UBI, or at the very least we better start experimenting with alternative economic models till we find something that is resilient to large portions of the population being _unemployable_
all technological improvement we had for horses ( wheel, carriages, leaf springs, suspension) INCREASED need for horses up _untill_ we made cars.
The same with humans, automation of certain tasks/new technology opens up the market for _new_ tasks, ( computers opened up coding) while making other tasks obsolete.
@adi_k Even intellectual automation is nothing new. It started with the abacus a long time ago.
what we generally find is that the tools that automate intellectual persuits largely act to enhance some human actor rather than replace it..
Google can be seen as replacing the intellectual labour of librarians, but in reality it just enhanced peoples ability to do research and improved humans intellectual persuits for the most part. Calculators arent much different.
But the idea that it somehow creates unemployment isnt really the reality of it. It doesnt increase unemployment int he least, only shifts it from one set of skills to another. We dont need librarians anymore but having good google skills is needed for a job all the same, and in many ways has created more jobs than it has destroyed.
The argument mostly relies on some imagined future that is on the horizon, but the fact is, its not the trend we are seeing. for all the talk of automation taking over jobs for years now the end result is more as I described, one sector disapears as other new sectors are created, the overall number of jobs is about the same, well technically it has gone up!
What we do see however is this increasing automation increases our ability to generate wealth, and the standard of living of even thelowest class of people in our society actually has continually increased as a result of this
In short I dont think the trends you describe are reflected onr eality. Its a narrative you hear based in fear but is historically not nearly as unique as people might think.
@freemo every technology we've had for horses (wheel, carriages, suspension, leaf springs) made horses MORE in demand, up UNTILL we made cars, now horses are no longer an important contributor to the economy, so too for humans, AI is to people what cars are to horses.
@adi_k except for the fact that horses didnt build and own the cars, nor are they the ones driving it.. which is the key difference.
AI generates wealth FOR us. At least until some immaginary point where they overthrow their humans and make us slaves :)
@freemo The automation claim is simple:
1. Humans have only 2 things to offer in terms of productive potential: physical and cognitive labour.
2. _ALL_ physical labour has been automated, so people moved to cognitive tasks like gardening and scientific research.
(Notice gardening is under cognitive labour, the component of gardening that is yet to be automated is the cognitive component, the physical component of that job can be done for less than a cent an hour.
[...1/3]
@freemo 3. Computers start to automate cognitive tasks too, so people start to move from low degree of freedom tasks to higher degrees of freedom. (DOF has nothing to do with what people find difficult ex: multiplying two million digit numbers has a lower degree of freedom than recognizing a cat in an image)
4. Humans have a limited number of DOF to offer, there is nothing to say that AI will stop before that limit, more likely it will proceed way beyond that.
5. Unemployment will become a problem waaay before the scenario in (4.) We have to remember that during previous automation waves there were mass riots and a lot of suicides.
[..2/3]
@freemo 6. *And this is the most important point, the market has attack record of _never_ catering to people without productive potential* .
Thus UBI, or at the very least we better start experimenting with alternative economic models till we find something that is resilient to large portions of the population being _unemployable_
@adi_k btw int he USa the geni coeffecient decreased from 1930 to 1970.. So unless you are suggesting that there was a constant catastrophic economic collapse continually for 40 years in the USA I would say that alone disproves the assertion that it always goes up.
@freemo wait hold on you're looking at the Gini-coefficient by family/household; do you see the same in individual Gini-coefficient?
@adi_k its individual based. In fact if you look at chargs of Gini coefficient across many countries at once you will notice some countries go up, many do in fact go down over long periods of time, and many stay about the same.
Any cursory look at the gini index over time would quickly show that your assertion that it always goes up except during catastrophe is patently false.
For example France, Norway, and Mexico have all had their Gini Index decreasing from the mid 1900's to today.. 70 years of consistently (mostly) going down.
@freemo @adi_k I don't think that most of the people want to do these kind of jobs, but maybe I just live in my little social bubble.. 😄 Okay, but this is a stretch. Watching tv is not a job. You are not contributing to society nor you are generating profits and not every low paid job is automatically low skill job. I know you are not saying that but I mentioned it just to be sure.
I agree that we need to tackle this low skill job by education for sure.
Obviously watching TV isnt a job. My point was simply that what people want to do as a job doesnt matter, we arent, or at least should not, try to be giving people whatever job they want and then try to throw money at them to make it "fair"... If you arent paid enough for a certain job then the job is clearly either not very critical, or more people want to do the job than we need doing it.
@freemo @adi_k
I had problem with watching TV example, because I don't think it represents my argument well. I am not saying that we should force some jobs to exist just so somebody could do them, but if someone is doing job that is useful, critical and can't be done by robots right now he should
not live on the line of poverty.
This is a problem that wealth distribution tries to solve, atleast in my opinion and as I said there are jobs that are hard as f and still are not paid well (in my country).
If people are doing a job that is in demand, then they will be paid well.
If someone isnt paid well it means that fewer people need the job done than people want to do it.
Watching TV is occasionally a job (people get paid for reviewing TV shows is a thing).. but they get paid very little because, well, anyone is willing to do it. But if you want to be part of a focus group, they will pay you.
Its a good example because while there is a need for the job, and people do pay for it, far more people are willing to do it than people need it done for them.. so its low paid... just as it should be.
@freemo @adi_k Watching TV and reviewing TV shows is again not the same thing I know it sounds pesky, but one is a job (produces review of the show) and one just consumes. And I would said it is a high skill job (not everyone has the knowledge of doing the review). If its a full time job and contributes to the community, it should be payed enought to keep someone out of poverty (directly or indirectly). This is more my personal belief.
I dont think that just because someone is working full time and contributes minimally to the community (does a job we dont really need them doing because we have too many people doing it already) should keep someone out of poverty.
If youw ant to stay out of poverty you should be expected to do jobs that society needs done to a great enough extent that society would pay well for it in the first place. If the job doesnt pay well then there is a low need in society for workers to do such a job.
A doctorial professor makes, on average, 141K in the USA, I'd say thats pretty damn good.
Remember its not just about how important the position is, its also about how skilled. High skilled positions will pay more since it takes more effort to do it.
Compare the above figure to a public school teacher at a remedial level and they only make 30K not 141K, huge difference. Sure we still need remedial school teachers, but it doesnt take nearly as much skill to be one.
There are two ways to solve that, one is to ensure more people are highly skilled, thus more wealth is generated and less competition for lower paying jobs. thus you will see less disparity as demands balance out
Or two, increase the skill we demand from teachers in the first place, which would also drive higher pay
But that would also start to get into a huge tangent around restructuring the education system in the first place. Currently I think in all countries we set the bar so low on education at the lower levels that the vast majority of children never reach their potential. a lot of this has to do with teach techniques.. but again this is a tangent.
Most kids could be doing college level work by middle school if they had teachers who provided the right education IMO.. but as I said, we are way below our poential there.
No I dont think how hard the job is should directly effect what we pay them. If it is truly a harder job than doctorial work (which I dont think it is, not in terms of skill-difficulty anyway) then that would be reflected in the pay already.
I'd imagine that the vast majority of grade school teachers would be completely incapable of even doing a doctorial professor position at all. It is signfiicantly more difficult to the point it would not even be doable for most of them.
But we really cant evaluate just the day to day effort...
How much effort does the doctorial profressor need to put in day to day learning new material to stay up to date in their field, how many years of effort did they have to put in studying to get to the point they are able to take the position in the first place.
If we compare effort of one job to the other i think we need to consider the overall effort, including training, not just the day to day effort, if we are going to evaluate what is fair.
@vnarek I think its undeniable that some people are going to attain a higher education than others.
A person with down syndrom could study their whole life and will likely never be an expert in nuclear physics. I think its safe to say there is some genetic middle ground. People who just arent naturally very inclined to learning certain intellectual persuits.
Thats one reason why I said skills rather than just university. For me the system I propose would also include, say going to school to learn an instrument, or art. There are many types of skills that take a life time to learn, are profitable, and accessable to people who may not be intellectually capable in other areas.
For people who have no potential to learn skills of any kind (lets say a non-speaking autistic person who may be completely non functional) then I do think exceptions should be made for them and welfare should take care of them should they have no family capable of doing so.
But these are rare exceptions.
@freemo Okay this is interesting, but then if those courses would be easier wouldn't it be easier to just stay on welfare indefinitely? I would like to learn to paint, then play some instrument, then learn to manage teams, but still not using those acquired skills for generating profit.
@vnarek Im not sure performing an instrument in a school setting would really be any less enjoyable than doing it for profit.
But one way to address that is to require alls chools attended as part of this welfare program to have co-op structure (which many universities have).. This way working as you would in your chosen profession is part of the schooling itself.
At that point you wouldnt really be avoiding work by going to school anyway, youd still be doing work (along side school) but paid less for it.
@freemo the market is designed to, as much as possible, turn the revenue from labour into revenue from capital, that's why the Gini-coefficient ALWAYS goes up unless something catastrophic happens like a collapse;
Of course the value of low skill labour is going down, but that's a huge problem! Having most of your needs met by the market instead of voting is a GOOD thing! but if the trend continues then your voting power becomes more influential than your monetary power, UBI is a way to keep you away from NEEDING to vote to maintain yourself and instead rely on the market _even when it's distributive component is insufficient_ it's a way to REDUCE reliance on government.