If They Don't Work Neither Shall They Eat

MICHELE BACHMANN: ‘IF ANYONE WILL NOT WORK, NEITHER SHOULD HE EAT’ | GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann promised to significantly lower funding to social safety net programs during a speech at the Family Research Council this morning, going so far as to suggest that people who can’t work should not eat. “Our nation needs to stop doing for people what they can and should do for themselves,” she said. “Self reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.”

Hers is a misquote in spirit to the Biblical quote found in 2 Thessalonians 3:10:  "For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either."

What if someone is willing to work but there are not enough jobs to go around.   This is not the future, it is now and it is going to get worse, much worse and much faster than you can imagine.  Moore's law will insure the rate of change in our society will remain mind boggling. 

We are at a fork in the road in this country.  This fork is more significant than any fork we have faced in my life time.  Since World War II,  we have not had a decision to make that could lead us to continued prosperity and an abundant life, or to a prison state with the have and the have-nots. It all hinges on whether or not we can change our cultural biases and absorb the fact that we need less and less workers with every day that passes -- and it is going to snowball, very very fast.

Some have called it the New Machine Age, some have called it the End of Work, some claim there is no solution for the upcoming mass unemployment..  Machines, computers, robots, networks, simulators, automatic controls, neural networks, automated answering services, Watson the Computer, automated warehouses, software than learns, cell phones connected to the cloud, the cloud, etc. are all taking jobs that used to be done by humans.   We can produce all the good and services required to feed and cloth our country, and even the world, with less and less workers every year.  Yes, we have the capacity to feed and cloth the entire world with our technology.  Technology is not what stands in the way, it is US.  

We do not have a problem with production side of the equation.  We can produce as much of anything that we want to produce.  But, we need less and less workers, so we have less and less consumers.  And with less consumers, we turn down the output of the factors another notch and we need less workers ... less consumers, etc.  (The smart ones should have gotten it by now.)

There are two possible futures:  in one, the machines (and computers) feed and cloth the world, in the other, the machines are used to make the rich richer and the rest of the world scrambles for the crumbs.  Surprisingly, the rich are even richer in the first scenario, the egalitarian state, than the second, the prison state, because of economies of scale, i.e., the rich have a middle class to sell the goods and services created by the machines.  But, in the second, much of the resources of society is engaged in a police state, a prison state, where the poor and desperate fight for the crumbs like many in third world countries.  It can't happen? It is already happening:  capitalism is no longer lifting everyone, it is only lifting a small and shrinking elite to the top.  We are one or two generations, a dozen iterations of Moore's law, before a worker will have little to no value.  See American's Future : Detroit.

If we follow people like MICHELE BACHMANN and reduce the social safety net -- as we are already doing -- then our ultimate path to a have and have-not society is insured, and it is only a few more steps to a third world country.  All the guns in the world will not change that when we no longer have money for food, clothes or bullets.  Bachmann assumes that man is inherently bad, lazy, good for nothing.  If that is true, then we are doomed anyway, but if you believe man has an indomitable spirit that strives to achieve, to accomplish, to grow, then keep reading and reach out a hand, believe in people and help keep the social net in place.

The irony is that by installing a safety net that includes food, clothing and basic housing our machine age can flourish and people will be freed to do the types of things this new machine age will require: creating, entertaining, teaching, networking, coaching, encouraging, and most of all, learning and adapting to a new way of life where working is a privilege.  We will need to find purpose in our lives, we will no longer have the sole purpose of surviving that has driven man since they first stood upright on two legs and threw a stick at a tiger ten times their size.  Imagine having a safety net that allows you to pursue your dreams.  We are not talking about having everything with this social net, but at least some food and a roof over your head.

If you need to be reminded how wealth is being created in this world, just look at Apple.  $400 billion of cash in the bank.  American industry alone is sitting on trillions of dollars of cash.  They are not investing because their factories can produce all the IPhones required without less workers each year.  IBM just announced layoffs.  Microsoft just announced it is laying off 16,000 (2014). Apple and Microsoft are companies that helps other companies use technology to reduce their labor force and be more profitable.  As our prisons fill American companies have no where to use their trillions of dollars of cash generated by the new machine age because as the number of workers decrease the number of consumers decrease.  They also run the government via PAC's and the good old boy club, so their wealth is not likely to be taxed away -- nor will that alone solve the problem if that money is not used to create the social net or create some jobs.

Here is another sad thing about this police state we are headed toward ... it will destroy all that we have accomplished in individual rights, including those freedoms we have fought for around sex, race, and religion. This is serious stuff.  I realize I have not made a complete case on how we move from trillions sitting in corporate America to the police state, but perhaps I have given you enough doubt that you will start challenging your own belief system.

We can have the new machine age create a Utopian world, or a hell on earth.  It is our choice.  We either see and adjust to the new reality or we will spiral downward. Right now, America is behind the rest of the world in seeing this looming tidal wave.