Send in the clowns!

Well, if labor creates all wealth, the guy who taps the computer at the central bank and creates a few billion dollars with a few keystrokes must be the most laborious.

This is about Marxist theory. — ssu

I see.

Didn't people have a lot more free time back in the day? It seems like to me that the machines that we use in agriculture (etc) require a more complex society, with everyone working more. Or perhaps rather, just more people. Instead of most everyone working the fields, there is a minority of farmers who use equipment, which is manufactured in a factory the employs many people, which gets materials from other factories, etc.

Didn't people have a lot more free time back in the day? — darthbarracuda

No. Taking a typical 19th century early 20th century midwestern farm as an example... Back in the day, there were still only 24 hours in a day. Prior to mechanization, farmers milked their cows by hand. This was time consuming and has to be done twice a day, 12 hours apart. Plowing fields, planting, and cultivating fields with horse power took considerably more time than when using a tractor. Making hay; threshing oats, barley, or wheat were all labor intensive and took quite a bit of time. Rather than a multi-day 4 step process to harvest grain back in the day, big combines now do it all in one pass, and keep track of yield by the square yard. Caring for horses, cattle, hogs, birds, or sheep; tending fences; maintaining buildings, etc. were year round projects. Yes, there were lulls in the flow of work--in the winter, especially; then after spring planting there would be a short respite. Once the crop was too high to cultivate, another short respite. Then the harvests would begin, which takes us back to late autumn and winter.

A farmer probably has more free time today. If he has a small not-terribly-profitable farm, he and/or his wife will probably work for a wage in town to balance their budget.

require a more complex society, with everyone working more — darthbarracuda

"Society" was no less complex 100 years ago. Most people generally worked longer hours 100-140 years ago -- between 8 to 10 hours. a day, 5.5 to 6 days a week. Almost everything--housekeeping to manufacturing farm equipment, involved a lot more physical labor. Technology became progressively more complex throughout the 19th century.

People work less per unit of output now than they did 100 years ago, thanks to gains in efficiency, automation, administration, technology, and so on. People seem to be spending at least the same amount of time at work despite more efficiency. [Parkinson's Law corollary: a worker can stretch a given amount of work to fill the available time.]

Compare the dinky horse-powered harvest machine [below] with the John Deere monster. The horse-powered machine increased the farmer's efficiency considerably. The machine was probably manufactured in Chicago, shipped to Minneapolis by rail, might have been sold at a warehouse showroom, then shipped to South Dakota by another railroad, to be picked up by the buyer when he got back home.

The John Deere machine might be purchased by a company providing harvesting services and would harvest many fields of wheat, corn, or whatever crop it was suited for. These machines make no financial sense on a farm of 2 or 3 hundreds of acres. These big machines can mow down thousands of acres a day.

There was a big change in land ownership over the 20th century (to very large acreages) which required these giant machines.

Very interesting, thank you. My only additional thought was that population has increased dramatically, which allows for a broader distribution of labor. The question (for me at least) is, does the population increase necessitate more advanced technology, or does the advancement of technology necessitate the increase of population? My readings of Ellul have led me to wonder if the latter is the case.

does the population increase necessitate more advanced technology, or does the advancement of technology necessitate the increase of population? — darthbarracuda

An intriguing question. I can only guess--no definitive answer from me.

The quality of life plays a role here: A population can increase without necessitating more advanced (hardware) technology. It probably can't increase beyond a certain point or improve it's quality of life without more technology. Advancing technology may require more population. The industrial revolution required many new workers drawn from somewhere--hence an increase in the population. Better transportation, more efficient mines, factories, etc. requires more people to consume the bounty of goods produced. If the goods don't get consumed, the economy fails; a given population can consume only so much.

Were we to have a stable world population, we would have to be very careful about what technology was introduced.

I posit that as new methods of increasing material gain are made available to us, as well as an automation of those processes which have hitherto been within the domain of physical labor, that those soaring inequities which now plague so many millions will reach a tipping-point; I posit it as such that those representatives who have been bought off by either corporate interests or who are of a legitimate delusion in the belief that a sustained redistribution of wealth would somehow be of detriment to the poor and downtrodden, rather than a necessary act of remediation, that either they will acquiesce to this demand, or otherwise in consequence of the extent of the issue, given that there is no sign of this trend reversing anytime soon, that they will be forcibly overthrown. After all, it isn't difficult to see that throughout history when man's material needs are left unfulfilled, and whereby he has remained patient for so long under the assumption that his circumstances will not be improved upon overnight, that eventually his capacity for a further such exercise will shatter, most likely through some instigating event and thereafter what shall be centered foremost on his mind is that great injustice which ails him. What he is sure to then seek, isn't simply that right of a livable circumstance which he was denied, but an enemy onto which he may direct his frustrations; whether this be the state or a particular individual it doesn't matter, insofar as he feels gratified because of the fact.

That for nearly half a century within the United States, and elsewhere, so large a portion of national wealth has been allowed to concentrate within the hands of so very few, is sure to entail not merely disagreement, or incivility, but is precisely that which the historical record has shown it to be; a probable cause both of war, and social decline. The abundance of misinformation which now dominates within the field of media and public discourse, and has assumed center-stage in the minds of many others is most contributive to this dysfunction, also. Though, even this portrayal of mine, and what the future of these inequities of ours may consist in, overlooks that our world's productive capacity is already running a deficit of nearly two-fold that which it is able to sustain, without in turn suffering ecological damage, and eventually, collapse. Yet, the status quo continues in its course, unremarked upon, in the face of both climatic instability, loss of habitable land on the order of millions of acres each year, and the extirpation of species upon which we have a fair degree of reliance, and which have up to this point existed as ambassadors of the natural state of things for many millions of years, far before our genetic ancestors even ventured onto solid-land. I am doubtful we will ever have the foresight necessary to reverse our march toward the abyss, our consignment of posterity to the gutter, or ever reflect on the misguidedness of appealing so completely to short-term gains knowing what the consequences of which, are. An unrelenting consumption is thus the purpose of this economic-gamble, and once we have consumed all in our path, we will in our helplessness know only hunger from that time forward. Then, a mightiest despair, until nothing but silence remains.

On a final note, as I just recently celebrated my second decade of life and am therefore relatively young still, I have reason to envy those who are as of this moment in their final years because they will, and much unlike myself, be spared the sight of those more extreme conditions of instability that will become ever more dominant and deafening to every other concern before the end of the century. Except for those with both a proper recognition of where our future will lead, and the ability to attest first-hand to those difficulties which are most affecting of members of my generation, no one will understand how very loathing I am of the fact of being a millennial, and just as well how very resentful I am of those who in their ignorance, and continued misjudgment, scarred the face of our world so completely as to leave it in so much worse a state than when they first inherited it.

The obvious example of technology increasing population growth is of course the emergence modern medicine. When fewer infants and children die, it's obvious that you have a growth in population. And when technology creates the ability to feed more people through the agricultural revolution, things like famines don't happen. Yet the decision how much children to have is a different social issue.

Otherwise, technological advancement and increased prosperity means usually that population growth decreases: well off people have less children. Children aren't there to take care of you at old age and not there to work on the field.

The industrial revolution required many new workers drawn from somewhere--hence an increase in the population. — Bitter Crank

I think this is a bit backward. The industrial revolution meant more jobs in new industries, which had higher wages for those working on the fields in the countryside. If factories are built and operate means that there have been enough people with the needed skills in the job market already. Population growth and demographic transitions take a long time.

Mali can have a large growing young population, but no semiconductor plants will spring up there as simply there aren't enough skilled people in the workforce to operate a semiconductor plant. If there would be with such a workforce with low African salary levels there, manufacturers would be in a frenzy to shift their production to Mali. Yet something like making clothes might something that the population could do (yet unfortunately the country is landlocked with minimal infrastructure). This is why textile industry is typically the first industry to start the industrial revolution from an agrarian country to an industrial country.

(Scotsman James Finlayson built a textile factory in Tampere, Finland in 1820. It became at one time the largest textile manufacturing plant in the Nordic countries, if I remember correctly. Reason: very cheap labour, cheapest in the Nordic countries, even if part of Russia back then.)

Eliminating all labor through automation would be a colossal blunder on the part of capitalism. We are aware, are we not, that capitalists are perfectly capable of Colossal Blunders? They would destroy the model that creates their wealth and power--without another model in sight. They might fantasize a world of Alpha Plus people (Brave New World) without the plague of betas, deltas, and epsilons, but achieving it would be inordinately messy. — Bitter Crank

:up:

I think CEO tech bros might fantasise that workless world, but other people don't (in the short term). Sweat shops don't seem to automate like factories do - so long as it's prohibitively expensive or pointless to automate in these places, the global circuit of production will redistribute value created by labour.

I think it comes down to a question of whether the fever dreams of Elon Musk resemble reality more than 1800's factory-scapes with loads of worker control.

Does this scheme invalidate Marx's theory of labor value? *** — Bitter Crank

But I think, closer to the OP, the scheme hypothetically would invalidate the labour theory of value; that theory seems to require that some people are working. In a hypothetical world where supply chains are all fully automated, that doesn't seem to hold.

Will automation render workers superfluous or irrelevant? — Bitter Crank

I don't think labor has much power anywhere in the world, and that's all capitalists care about since excessive power on their part limited capital accumulation during the oil supply shock of the 70s. Automation was part of that shift.

The alternative to manufacturing is raiding. Capitalists weaponize investment by lending to small countries which are vulnerable to American interest rates. They wait for the target to head toward default, then come in and make changes that facilitate the raiding of whatever wealth that population has.

It sounds like this would be a short term strategy, but it's been going on for a while now.

Does this scheme invalidate Marx's theory of labor value? ***

***One of the cornerstones of Marxian economics was Karl Marx’s ideas around the labor theory of value. The labor theory of value argues that the value of a commodity is determined by the average amount of time needed to produce the commodity. An example of the labor theory of value would be if a t-shirt takes half the time to make as a hat, the hat would be priced at two times the t-shirt. — Bitter Crank

Correct me if I’m missing something. Wikipedia seems to describe Marx’s ideas to be more complex than that. It describes that Marx believed that an object’s value is based on the amount of labor it took to create it with respect to how much society values that labor. So your example is only true if society demanded the labor for both T-shirt making and hat making equally.

An interesting addenda to the way capital allows you to do more work with less labor is theories on labor substitution. Major construction projects in the developing world still use manpower for tasks like excavating. It's not that place like India can't get backhoes or build their own, it's that labor is so cheap there that it is little incentive to modernize.

The problem is that increasing pay and safety for workers makes capital more appealing.

Just because machines do the labor doesn't mean that labor isn't the source of wealth. — Pfhorrest

You summed that up very efficiently. What needs to follow is taxing this labor, because when machines replace humans who must pay income taxes, the government loses revenue, right?.

So your example is only true if society demanded the labor for both T-shirt making and hat making equally. — FlaccidDoor

I want to see if I understand you correctly. When millions of people want T-shirts that increase the value of the T-shirt. If only a few people wear hats, they don't have much value. Is that right according to the theory?

When Russia was coming out of communism I thought they didn't get things exactly right. Potatoes should be very cheap so everyone can afford them. However, when the potatoes are processed to be instant potatoes or potato chips, you can charge as much as the market can handle without hurting the need to feed people. Changing the raw potato is value-added. Is that right?

Except the US government can buy the potatoes and turn them into instant potatoes increasing their shelf life and this surplus of potatoes reduces the cost. That is supply and demand, right?

When 500 people in a factory can produce many times more product than individuals working alone n small shops, the cost of labor is low and so the price of the product. Some products would be unaffordable without factories making mass production possible. How does Marx handle that?

Didn't people have a lot more free time back in the day? It seems like to me that the machines that we use in agriculture (etc) require a more complex society, with everyone working more. Or perhaps rather, just more people. Instead of most everyone working the fields, there is a minority of farmers who use equipment, which is manufactured in a factory the employs many people, which gets materials from other factories, etc. — darthbarracuda

Oh ouch, labor-intense societies do not enjoy a lot of free time. Before we perfected our machinery, people, including children, worked 12 to 14 hour days, 7 days a week, for poverty wages, forcing the family to put their children into dangerous mines and factories.

:lol: Try growing a garden large enough to feed a family for a year and after harvesting it, preserve the food so it will last a year. This fun experiment is even better if you are a woman with children because then you must attend to them and clean the house and make the clothes by hand and make your own soap and do laundry by hand. Try that for about a year and then tell us about your free time.

Well, if labor creates all wealth, the guy who taps the computer at the central bank and creates a few billion dollars with a few keystrokes must be the most laborious. — ssu

:lol: Anyone who works that hard will need a vacation to recover.

I'm sorry, I am not fluent in Marxist writing. In fact you could say I'm completely new to the language. I just looked at the Wikipedia page about the Labor Theory of Value because everyone here was talking about it. I just thought it was weird that an object's value would be measured by the labor put into it, because a rock I smashed for 6 hours into dust is not worth 6 hours of my labor. Then I found that Marx actually never used the term the Labor Theory of Value according to that page, and that he believes that society needs to value that labor.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Karl_Marx

New software is needed, periodically. The powerful computers are able to write new software as needed.

I don't believe this. Humans write software. Computers execute it. That's because computers have no idea of the kinds of problems which unwritten software is intended to solve. The first step in any software development is a specification, and computers are not able to supply that, because they have no needs.

I don't believe this. Humans write software. Computers execute it. — Wayfarer

Nope.

https://www.wired.com/story/googles-learning-software-learns-to-write-learning-software/

Of course, there’s always going to be an exception. But I stand by the point. If computers became self-programming, why would they have any reason to write programs that benefitted humans? Asimov anticipated all this in I Robot, but it’s still sci fi.

If computers became self-programming, why would they have any reason to write programs that benefitted humans? — Wayfarer

Why wouldn't they?

I can think of several reasons why they would...

They might like the company - unpredictable, quirky, and irrational as we are - or find us useful in some way and so benefit from our thriving.
They might develop random codes which get re-enforced in subsequent codes.
They might see not helping as simply entailing more uncertainty in complex environment than a more conservative approach.

It's like you're suggesting there aren't any good reasons for us to benefit other humans (if it weren't for strong moral codes prescribing that we should). If benefitting those who share our world is a good thing for all, then there's no reason at all why a computer wouldn't work that out.