Freemason9
Gold Member
- Aug 14, 2012
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The flip side of this issue is sustainability and the damage being done to the enviroment through industrial agriculture. I live in the American midwest, and the impact farming has had on the environment is shocking (polluted groundwater, elimination of trees, surface water contamination, and topsoil destruction). I'm fairly certain that the agricultural industry will be in a crisis state within decades. You would be amazed at how much--and how many--chemicals are required to grow field corn and soybeans, and that's what most midwestern farmers want to grow. It's easy, and it's subsidized!This is exactly what I would like to discuss. Goods will still be scarce , so we will still need trade and markets. And yet , with little labour supply households will have little bargaining power. Even worse, there will be no need to produce those consumer goods.
One possible solution would be wealth re distribution through taxation, increasing the importance of corporate taxes, relative to the importance of individual income taxes.
With unlimited extremely cheap and highly skilled labor why would goods be scarce?
And the hope that humans would "explore arts, humanities, culture, science, and other liberal arts" is unlikely. Having the majority of the people being unable to contribute meaningfully to society would most likely produce a decadent culture to a degree not seen before.
Goods would be cheaper ( the labour costs would be minimum ) but there would be a small amount of jobs.
This situation is not completely unlikely : it happened during the begining of the industrial revolution . It took nearly 50 years for the market to correct the problem.
Will the market be able to correct this new situation or is a different kind of solution required ?
Cheaper is the opposite of scarce.
So how does that change effect your scenario?
I'm not sure: agriculture is already automated in a 99% . Does that mean everyone has food ? Unfortunately not, but this is changing for good rapidly.
I also think about how China has affected the US sure, goods (from China) are cheap, but how good is that when you have no employment and income.
I am thinking one should avoid getting crammed in cities and get hold of some land.
There is more than enough food produced to feed everyone on the planet twice over. The sad reality is that billions of tons of food are wasted due to human greed, incompetence, corruption, and hatred.