The problem is that with the current tech anybody should be able to live a simple yet good life with her basic needs fulfilled. The requirement that all people work and the poverty of most of those who don't (for any reason) and even of a lot of those who do is needed for capitalism -- at least the kind which is practiced now. Implicit hypotheses are made: market value is fair by definition (and when there even when there is no market, we pretend implicitly otherwise by continuing to state the prices are fair by definition and driven by value), infinite growth is possible, the "unmet desires" of some should define the model of society for all, the virtually infinite wealth (=> power) of few poses no ethical power just because they typically "created" a superior amount of wealth for the public.
IMO, all those hypotheses are utter bullshit and are the sign of a crazy individualistic society, but I admit this is mainly a question of personal ethics and values.
The most important things are education, housing, food and health. There is no reason not to unconditionally provide that to everybody if we can afford it, and when I say "if we can afford it" I mean even if that implies e.g. cutting the number of iPad by a factor 100 and increasing the price of gasoline by a factor 3 or 10 or whatever. Obviously, the ruling class does not want that kind of thing to happen, because that would mean impairment of the capitalist ideology, the loss of a big part of their power (perceived and real), and worst of all the loss of a perceived "way of life".
> It is a logical impossibility that technology throws the bulk of the population into poverty -- either they have access to all the cheap robotic goods, in which case they are not poor in any meaningful sense, or they don't have access to the cheap robotic goods, in which case the robots are not competing with them in their ability to sell to each other.
Irrefutable arguments are suspicious, and this one is no exception; you are not going to produce e.g. drugs yourself when you can't afford to buy one at "market"^W arbitrary prices, and the same is true for lots of products of today life.
And even if you could, that also starts with the hypothesis that people should work (or have an enormous amount of capital, but I'm obviously not very worrying for those kind of people) to be allowed to live a mainstream life. This is a point of view, but when technology make the alternative possible, I see no reason you should be allowed to impose it on everybody, especially when in lots of case this is done by creating artificial scarcity even when this involve waste...
IMO, all those hypotheses are utter bullshit and are the sign of a crazy individualistic society, but I admit this is mainly a question of personal ethics and values.
The most important things are education, housing, food and health. There is no reason not to unconditionally provide that to everybody if we can afford it, and when I say "if we can afford it" I mean even if that implies e.g. cutting the number of iPad by a factor 100 and increasing the price of gasoline by a factor 3 or 10 or whatever. Obviously, the ruling class does not want that kind of thing to happen, because that would mean impairment of the capitalist ideology, the loss of a big part of their power (perceived and real), and worst of all the loss of a perceived "way of life".
> It is a logical impossibility that technology throws the bulk of the population into poverty -- either they have access to all the cheap robotic goods, in which case they are not poor in any meaningful sense, or they don't have access to the cheap robotic goods, in which case the robots are not competing with them in their ability to sell to each other.
Irrefutable arguments are suspicious, and this one is no exception; you are not going to produce e.g. drugs yourself when you can't afford to buy one at "market"^W arbitrary prices, and the same is true for lots of products of today life.
And even if you could, that also starts with the hypothesis that people should work (or have an enormous amount of capital, but I'm obviously not very worrying for those kind of people) to be allowed to live a mainstream life. This is a point of view, but when technology make the alternative possible, I see no reason you should be allowed to impose it on everybody, especially when in lots of case this is done by creating artificial scarcity even when this involve waste...