Leave North America, it's a whole new world(TM)
I recently read "A Year of Living Danishly"[1] - an amazing account of two early-30s brits who move to Denmark and learn how life works there. After an adjustment period, they are floored, and I mean absolutely floored how good the work/life balance is. They are shocked their old life they loved can seem so horrible in comparison.
I asked my Danish friend about it, and he said "Yeah, I like living in a country that focuses on being happy rather than focusing on getting money."
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1785780239/?tag=roadchoseme-20
The real issue is why doesn't later stages capitalism just create wealth for all? Why does my boss's ideas of work, which he learned from his boss, eventually trickle down to my idea of work and when I push back I open myself up to punishment? Why does his greed normalize work life?
I imagine a maximum income/net wealth cap on individuals would stop that but short of a revolution I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Industrial capitalism is over 200 years old and shows no signs of stopping. Its biggest competitor, communism, failed spectacularly. So yes, the oil money will run out and then the laws of scarcity will put these economies in the same place everyone else is in. This scarcity will trickle down to labor as the cycle repeats itself.
Or, more likely, oil prices will crash once ICE gets replaced by electric vehicles and we power them with solar, nuclear, natural gas, and wind. That will most likely happen well before 50 years. A lot of good that oil will do Norway if no one wants it.
Norway also has a state pension fund that is the largest in Europe at slightly over USD700B, bigger than California's pension fund.
Even if things turned bad Norway would still have USD250k~300k per citizen in state funds (if things turned out rosy it would be nearly USD650k per capita). Compare this to the USG of nearly USD9k per capita. In PPP terms Norway has little to worry about.
At today's prices. Do you really think oil demand will continue for the next 50-100 years at this level with all this investment in renewables? We're currently at a price slump close to pricing from two decades ago.
Its a little presumptuous to think oil will continue to have this value.
Wikipedia says it's a mixture of equities (60%), government bonds (25%), corporate bonds (10%) and real estate (5%). If (when) oil profits vanish, these investments will still be there. In fact, since they are legally unable to withdraw more than 4% of the fund's value each year (and typically make more than that), it should continue to grow indefinitely.
The fund has a really interesting set of ethical guidelines--they won't invest in tobacco companies, companies causing severe environmental damage, or those involved in nuclear weapons or cluster munitions, for example.
The Norway sovereign fund isn't the valuation of their oil businesses, it consists of 1T investments in non-oil businesses, including renewables, that have been funded by oil that's already sold at yesterday's prices. If oil become worthless tonight, they'd still have the 1T fund and it's ongoing proceeds.
Smith's argument at the end of the same passage and throughout the WoN is that government intervention and regulation is necessary to avoid the societal decay that the invisible hand of capitalism can produce. Specifically he suggests government-sponsored education as the best solution to the problem.
Why should we value leisure time over work, and by proxy, acquisition of capital?
These are the activities that gave us the great comforts of modern living, from electric light, to heating, to plumbing, electronic entertainment, vaccines from diseases, you name it.
We're not 'done' with hard work, or technological evolution. We never will be, and that's a good thing.
If you want to push for more leisure time than is currently available fine - but most people won't, because they instintively feel bad for not keeping up with others. And perhaps they should. Or at least they should admire and deeply respect those who put in the work to make our world go round. You can't shame away diligence.
I absolutely despise this argument, because it usually forgets that you can have all the time in the world, and it won't matter if you can't pay your rent or buy food.
Why should one be forced to pay rent or buy food? Just try to live independently in the US, it's not possible. If you want to buy land and grow your own food, the first thing to notice is that property taxes are actually a rent paid to the state. In many areas you're forced to hook up to the city water/sewer system, which is another form of rent.
People keep bringing up "basic income" which I think is crap. How about we try to reduce the cost of existence instead, so people can get off the economic treadmill? Then we can work up to our level of comfort rather than have people at the bottom struggle to survive. Everyone would be happier except those who strive to exploit the labor of others.
I do not advocate welfare with this, just elimination of as much financial pressure as possible. Eliminating rents is the first step IMHO. This includes phasing out mortgages, which are rents on money that only serve to inflate home prices thereby increasing demand for loans. On this point I am not totally convinced, but I think gradually reducing the percent of sale price than can be borrowed would be a start. I don't know if lowering that to zero is actually optimal, but I suspect 50 percent would be better than where we are today.
Well, you're not. You don't have to exist. I kinda like existing, though.
Yes, yes, utopian society and all that. It's the way things exist now, and while it can be fun to imagine a world without it, it's not entirely practical when trying to figure out a problem for those displaced from automation.
"I do not advocate welfare with this, just elimination of as much financial pressure as possible. Eliminating rents is the first step IMHO. This includes phasing out mortgages, which are rents on money that only serve to inflate home prices thereby increasing demand for loans. On this point I am not totally convinced, but I think gradually reducing the percent of sale price than can be borrowed would be a start. I don't know if lowering that to zero is actually optimal, but I suspect 50 percent would be better than where we are today."
So nobody but the uber wealthy can buy houses? And how do you eliminate the rent when I live in an apartment?
Adjust that so nobody but the wealthy can afford to build a NEW house. We already have it that the poor generally buy used cars (or buy with bad deals, negative equity etc...). If there were no loans then there would probably be an eventual housing shortage, but we currently have people over extending themselves just to get in the game.
As housing prices fall, your rent will too. But I'm in favor of doing as much as possible to eliminate rentals as well.
As an example, look at the housing bubble forming in the bay area. If people had to put down 50 percent of the purchase price, they would not be able to afford todays prices and the prices would come down.
Housing shortages tend to RAISE prices, not lower them. And no, I'm not going to adjust my statement, as it reflects current reality. You adjust your response.
"As housing prices fall, your rent will too."
There's not much to indicate this would be true.
"But I'm in favor of doing as much as possible to eliminate rentals as well."
So while I'm busy not being able to buy a house, where do I live?
"As an example, look at the housing bubble forming in the bay area. If people had to put down 50 percent of the purchase price, they would not be able to afford todays prices and the prices would come down."
That's assuming there aren't people buying those houses.
- Pensions
- Alaska Permanent Fund
- Child tax credits
- Stimulus cheques
- Social Security
- Welfare
Maybe the phrase "basic income" is too closely associated with socialism... in that case, call it an automation tax credit or something. Once people start receiving the cheques, they'll realize that it's a pretty good deal— kind of like the ACA.
The United States House of Representatives passed a Basic Income bill written by Richard Nixon in 1969. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vHYFzYvCak
Over the years I've watched various professions devalued to search engines and spreadsheets, from paralegals to accountants. I don't think it's a bad thing. It's progress and it's freeing up time. The bad part is that we live in a society with an antiquated work-ethic, where your value is measured in capital and the number of hours you put in each week at your job. Automation isn't the problem, living is a culture incapable of valuing leisure time is what needs to change.