The actual effect being deflationary, and the statement on hoarding are exactly the sorts of insights I was looking for. Thank you! Can you explain how they are actually deflationary? And what does hoarding have to do with it?
As far as the risky jobs, I am not, and have never been, saying that no one will choose a risky job. I am saying that it shouldn’t be a consequence of any good system to capitalise on the altruism of firefighters or the stupidity of people who choose a dangerous job. If people want to take on risks, great! If the risks are inherent to necessary labour, they should be compensated according to the relative expected loss of future productivity. Just because they aren’t under the capitalist system doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be. I must presume that the goal of this system would be to increase overall utility, that is to say, to increase —nay, maximise— total happiness and welfare. Consider a person who is choosing a job. We need people to perform all of these jobs, but some of them, like farming or construction, are far more risky. There may be some adrenaline junkies out there, as you have said, but the presumption of a sufficient number of adrenaline junkies to fill every construction and farming job is not a basis for a system of governance. You say “replace them with robots”, but that isn’t actually an answer. That’s just saying that we should have the goal of making all jobs which carry a risk to life and limb redundant. Anywhere it is economically feasible to replace workers with robots, it has already been done (or is being done now) under capitalism’s ever-increasing drive toward wealth centralisation. So, back to the person choosing a job. They are faced with a choice: all labor has the same value, so where do they want to work? Well, a rational actor will do a cost-benefit analysis, weighing risk and reward with each option. They may have a dream job, but that will only get them through the door. It doesn’t keep them there. If they get seriously injured, they may never work again. Risk of death reduces life expectancy, albeit marginally. Why should the rational actor choose a profession —or choose to stay in a profession— which carries with it known risks to physical or mental health, when they can choose to do something with virtually no risk instead? If a job carries with it risks of death or injury to physical or mental health, then those jobs should be incentivised to account for the reduced expected career length and risk, in order to ensure that those positions are filled. I just don’t understand how that’s controversial. Equality is not equity. Someone working as a firefighter should be compensated for the fact that, at any time, they could die for the public good. That loss of future expected productivity should be compensated by spreading the expected loss of productivity (risk multiplied by cost) over the course of their labour.
When you do not properly incentivise people, they leave for greener pastures or, worse, stay and continue through a cycle of depression. It is bad for civilisation to have fields in which experience increases efficiency (nearly every field) being filled with new people to replace the people who realised that entering the field was a bad decision. That’s not something you should plan for, but in a previous comment you said that there would be plenty of people waiting to take over when the experienced teachers left. That is not a good thing. We lose teachers because they realize that you are correct, there is no rational way to justify working as a teacher unless you’re some green-beard altruist who doesn’t believe in money. It just isn’t worth the mental stress to work, if the payment is what you need out of it. No good system should rely on the intrinsic motivation of people to magically decide to do the right thing and throw themselves onto the pyre. How does the Marxist system suggest that we should handle labour which, by its nature, is more dangerous, more taxing, or has a lower expected career length, while also being essential to social progress? Any and all of those careers you listed should have increased compensation based on the serious risk of death.
I will look elsewhere for the answer to the problem of accountability, because you do appear steadfast that the question of who determines and assigns the values of goods and services is meaningless. I cannot fathom that apparent position, less reconcile it with your other statements, but very well.
Again, you ate claiming that “a rational actor” is apparently only one that seeks to be edit themselves in the short term at the expense of both society and that of their own long term value. So where is your basis for making this claim of supposed “human nature”?
As for deflation - as the amount of time spent to produce an equal amount of goods decreases, the amount of goods an hour of labor can purchase increases. This is an issue if people hoard vouchers, as the future value is greater than the present, and so there’s incentive not to consume current goods, and artificially decrease demand. But vouchers do not allow transfer or hoarding, unlike money.
The actual effect being deflationary, and the statement on hoarding are exactly the sorts of insights I was looking for. Thank you! Can you explain how they are actually deflationary? And what does hoarding have to do with it?
As far as the risky jobs, I am not, and have never been, saying that no one will choose a risky job. I am saying that it shouldn’t be a consequence of any good system to capitalise on the altruism of firefighters or the stupidity of people who choose a dangerous job. If people want to take on risks, great! If the risks are inherent to necessary labour, they should be compensated according to the relative expected loss of future productivity. Just because they aren’t under the capitalist system doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be. I must presume that the goal of this system would be to increase overall utility, that is to say, to increase —nay, maximise— total happiness and welfare. Consider a person who is choosing a job. We need people to perform all of these jobs, but some of them, like farming or construction, are far more risky. There may be some adrenaline junkies out there, as you have said, but the presumption of a sufficient number of adrenaline junkies to fill every construction and farming job is not a basis for a system of governance. You say “replace them with robots”, but that isn’t actually an answer. That’s just saying that we should have the goal of making all jobs which carry a risk to life and limb redundant. Anywhere it is economically feasible to replace workers with robots, it has already been done (or is being done now) under capitalism’s ever-increasing drive toward wealth centralisation. So, back to the person choosing a job. They are faced with a choice: all labor has the same value, so where do they want to work? Well, a rational actor will do a cost-benefit analysis, weighing risk and reward with each option. They may have a dream job, but that will only get them through the door. It doesn’t keep them there. If they get seriously injured, they may never work again. Risk of death reduces life expectancy, albeit marginally. Why should the rational actor choose a profession —or choose to stay in a profession— which carries with it known risks to physical or mental health, when they can choose to do something with virtually no risk instead? If a job carries with it risks of death or injury to physical or mental health, then those jobs should be incentivised to account for the reduced expected career length and risk, in order to ensure that those positions are filled. I just don’t understand how that’s controversial. Equality is not equity. Someone working as a firefighter should be compensated for the fact that, at any time, they could die for the public good. That loss of future expected productivity should be compensated by spreading the expected loss of productivity (risk multiplied by cost) over the course of their labour.
When you do not properly incentivise people, they leave for greener pastures or, worse, stay and continue through a cycle of depression. It is bad for civilisation to have fields in which experience increases efficiency (nearly every field) being filled with new people to replace the people who realised that entering the field was a bad decision. That’s not something you should plan for, but in a previous comment you said that there would be plenty of people waiting to take over when the experienced teachers left. That is not a good thing. We lose teachers because they realize that you are correct, there is no rational way to justify working as a teacher unless you’re some green-beard altruist who doesn’t believe in money. It just isn’t worth the mental stress to work, if the payment is what you need out of it. No good system should rely on the intrinsic motivation of people to magically decide to do the right thing and throw themselves onto the pyre. How does the Marxist system suggest that we should handle labour which, by its nature, is more dangerous, more taxing, or has a lower expected career length, while also being essential to social progress? Any and all of those careers you listed should have increased compensation based on the serious risk of death.
I will look elsewhere for the answer to the problem of accountability, because you do appear steadfast that the question of who determines and assigns the values of goods and services is meaningless. I cannot fathom that apparent position, less reconcile it with your other statements, but very well.
Again, you ate claiming that “a rational actor” is apparently only one that seeks to be edit themselves in the short term at the expense of both society and that of their own long term value. So where is your basis for making this claim of supposed “human nature”?
As for deflation - as the amount of time spent to produce an equal amount of goods decreases, the amount of goods an hour of labor can purchase increases. This is an issue if people hoard vouchers, as the future value is greater than the present, and so there’s incentive not to consume current goods, and artificially decrease demand. But vouchers do not allow transfer or hoarding, unlike money.