Is Paid Wage Labor Really Worth It?

Writing in his two-volume masterpiece, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth Of Nations,  Adam Smith envisaged a market society of individual proprietors: butchers, bakers, printers etc. all of whom would be self-employed and not dependent on performing wage labor under a single employer.  Abraham Lincoln was no different, stating in an 1859 address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society:

"The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while and - at length- hires another beginner to help him".

In other words the beginning job taker may work under wage labor himself but ultimately becomes an employer of others.  Thus the takeaway that even well into the 19th century wage labor was seen as only a temporary step to individual entrepreneur.    Today, many who've lost their wage jobs are also attempting this route, but alas- because of the competition - too many are failing.  Most tragically, the yearly glut of degree-holding younger job seekers has pushed many into the unskilled labor force - including as Starbucks baristas and retail clerks.

A lot of other systemic factors contribute too, including lack of guaranteed health care for self-employed folks - so that they now have to gamble they won't fall ill or have a serious accident under Trump Care.  Then there is the scale of initial investment needed, often making it a huge risk even to operate a franchise.

As opposed to Lincoln's era then, establishing a small business today is simply too fraught with risk for too many Americans, who still rely on their employers for health insurance and long term income. And that's assuming they can even get the level of pay and benefits needed.  Too many Americans now, including amongst the Trumpies, are forced to patch together a precarious existence and income from freelance gigs, using Uber, 'TaskRabbit' etc.  Or being an adjunct prof - who has to ply his teaching trade at 5 or 6 different universities.

WSJ columnist William Galston in his May 8 piece ('An Econ Mystery: Why Did Wages Flatline"') makes an even more cogent case for avoiding wage labor, but alas, offers no solutions how to escape it. This is despite the fact, as he points out "the labor-force participation rate which nudged above 67 percent in the 1990s, stands at only 62.9 percent today".

So what's happened? Well, for one thing much less investment in paid work, human labor. As I noted already (April 14), automation is grabbing more and more jobs, citing the WaPo article (4/ 8) by Jeff Guo,  'Robots Take Production Up Another Notch'

"Industrial robots alone have eliminated up to 670,000 American jobs between 1990 and 2007, according to new research from MIT's Daron Acemoglu and Boston University's Pascual Restrepo."

But in addition there is the Neoliberal dynamic explained by William Wolman and Anne Colamosca in their 1997 work, 'The Judas Economy: The Triumph of Capital And The Betrayal of Work'.  The authors argue that the modern Neoliberal state has no interest in human labor, paying it properly, or re-investing. It is capital that takes precedence, hence business is only invested in its own aggrandizement and proliferation at the expense of citizens. A key indicator? The magnitude of investment by corporations in stock buybacks as opposed to labor investment.   Since 2009, U.S. firms - entrenched in their own myopic interests- boosted capital investment by only 43%, dividends by 67% and stock buybacks by a whopping 194%. This according to Jason Thomas of Carlyle Group. In addition, rather than investing in new plants for new jobs, businesses have squandered $2 trillion on mergers and acquisitions .

Galston in his WSJ piece is clear on the trends:

"Firms have gains they could share with workers, but they have chosen not to do so. Even in occupations where there companies complain of labor shortages, there is scant evidence they are responding by raising compensation."

So one arrives at the question of whether paid labor is even worth pursuing anymore, or - to use the refrain of James Livingston - a historian at Rutgers: "Fuck work!".  Livingston takes up this theme in his new book, 'No More Work: Why Full Employment Is A Bad Idea.'.  His arguments are corroborated and reinforced by a similar work by Elizabeth Anderson of the University of Michigan: 'Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (And Why We Don't Talk About It).

I mean think about these titles before even considering the respective content (for which the general theme in each case is that corporations now rule our lives as opposed to the government).  Think this is preposterous? For most workers entering wage labor at a corporation it's no joke. They are warned by finance columnists (like Jill Schlesinger) that they had better take down any anti-capitalist or controversial blogs or posts on news forums before going to that interview. (Some of the material such as I've written on 'Brane Space' would prevent most from even getting in the door for that interview, because employers now Google you first).

Then there are the other warnings, i.e. to remove all "controversial" photos, images etc. from one's Facebook pages. Also, any comments, writings that might be construed as anti-free market, or espousing any kind of "aggressive" environmentalism, or activist protests including climate change tracts.

If one is "lucky' enough to then get hired by "Corporation One", the extensive contract terms in fine print (sometimes given by HR depts.) let you know you are under constant surveillance. That includes all your outgoing (and incoming ) emails read by the boss and oh yeah - your keystrokes recorded as well as time consume for any bathroom breaks. If you have to take a crap - as one boss once confided to a friend at a radiotherapy software company "Make sure you're wearing Depends if you have overtime..")

But it doesn't stop there. In today's proto-fascist corporate work environment where ten million bosses channel Donald Trump, they can dictate how underlings wear and style their hair, when they can eat, how often drug tests are imposed, and the right to rifle through belongings in your desk any time they want. These tyrants can also require their slaves.....errrr, workers, to complete - as endurance test for entry - lengthy questionnaires concerning off-hours alcohol consumption, exercise habits as well as childbearing intentions.  The real howler here? The number of conservatives and Right wingers who whine and moan about "government intrusion" in our lives but are quite okay with a hotshot corporate CEO doing it to them - daily.

So much for any "rights". Meanwhile, Americans are daily fed the codswallop that "work builds character", "work will give you meaning", "work will give you satisfaction"  and other hogwash. Surely, if any of those tropes was true it ought to be possible to work full time in the 'richest nation on Earth" and not have to apply for food stamps or Medicaid. But we all know that's not the case and it isn't because those affected are "lazy" or "lack, ambition". They have plenty of ambition, there just aren't the quality jobs available to provide ample support - including to afford decent housing.

For these reasons, Livingston - like me- believes the cockeyed aspiration to "full employment" is misplaced and in the wrong direction. With automation and shrinking available quality jobs - along with too many people chasing them, it makes more sense to implement a "universal basic income" (UBI) to correct the course.  A start in that direction meanwhile would be to lower the maximum number of hours that comprise a "full work week". The French have already done that, capping the work week at 35 hours.  

A recent WSJ editorial (May 8) didn't like that, carping:

"Successive French presidents have failed to undo the 1999 35-hour workweek law amid militant union protests"

But the French are correct, because on its face the 35-hour week (in the context of a still "full employment" era)  enables more workers to be hired. It also paves the way for further lowering of paid wage hours as automation and other (economic efficiency) forces exert their unstoppable attrition on wage labor.  The next step, at some point, is the implementation of UBI.  The trick is to get politicians and other academic elites to use their heads and get going sooner than later, when it may be too difficult. This is especially as global population continues growing to the point of tripling (by 2050) from what it was 50 years ago.

The two authors cited in this post - Livingston and Anderson - make clear that no one should bemoan the demise of paid wage labor. It has already stolen too much in the way of time from families and caregivers, even while we've ceded an unconscionable amount of our energy in making wage work the primary conduit for our liberty and morality. In the end, all we've done is sacrifice our time and humanity to an entrenched Corporatocracy and its overpaid CEO henchmen.  Insisting the companies can improve our "work-life balance" misses the point, according to the authors, and is too timid. The cold hard fact is that corporate employers hold the means to our well being and currently have the law on their side.

Livingston's recommendation is blunt:  Instead of idealizing work and making it the linchpin of our society he asks: "Why not just get rid of it?"

Something to ponder.

Onslaught Of Automation Means Time For Guaranteed Basic Income Has Arrived

When I first saw the projected stats on CNBC they boggled my mind: 74 percent of all retail jobs estimated to be eliminated because of automation by 2033. Also, 94 percent of all the waiters and waitresses will be rendered redundant and have to look for something else. Anomalies? No, it's projected in many jobs across the board even 100 percent of truck drivers - to be replaced by driverless trucks.

Then there was the WaPo article (4/ 8) by Jeff Guo,  'Robots Take Production Up Another Notch', pointing out that economists "have long argued that automation - not trade- has been responsible for eliminating the bulk of jobs over the past 25 years", adding:

"Industrial robots alone have eliminated up to 670,000 American jobs between 1990 and 2007, according to new research from MIT's Daron Acemoglu and Boston University's Pascual Restrepo."

The authors note two divergent conclusions have come out of the research: 1) robots are "winning the race for American jobs", and 2) the nation is ill-equipped to deal with the upheaval caused by automation. In particular in the latter case, half of all job losses have resulted from robots directly replacing workers. Far from Stephen Hawking's AI nightmare world coming true, that we will all be made the "slaves" of high order artificial intelligence entities, the real nightmare is here and now,  staring us in the face. It is the displacement of human labor by robots-auotmation resulting in mass human under employment and unemployment.

And there is a compounding effect. As the authors write:

"It seems after a factory sheds workers the economic pain reverberates, triggering further unemployment at the grocery store or the neighborhood car dealership".

Well, of course this would follow if those in the neighborhood lack the money to buy groceries or cars.

Which elicits the question of what is to become of these people? Or more exactly, how are they to be supported if there aren't enough jobs to enable them to even put food on the table, far less a roof over their heads? (And looking at an important WSJ article yesterday (p. A2) referencing teachers unable to afford homes in many municipalities, because of exploding home prices, it becomes downright scary. In Denver, for example, 87 % of all homes are out of the reach of teachers, as well as police.)

One of several myths circulating is there are ample jobs to go around if people just look for them, but the fact is there aren't.  A huge "job pyramid" is the abiding reality with only a few (mainly techie) jobs at the top but a vast base of underpaid work below and much of that being swallowed by automation. Another odious myth is that workers are "unwilling to move to take jobs".  Robert Samuelson, for his part, has insisted that "work is mobile, workers are not". So what?  Samuelson seriously expects workers are to pack up and move every time they're downsized?  Samuelson, neolib moron that he is, forgets that most workers are locked into homes, and mortgages. They can't pack up and move at will. Oh, and let's recall the cautionary case of the poor guy who moved lock,stock and barrel from Cleveland to Denver....and ten days into his new job, was told his skill set didn't quite match and they didn't need him after all.

Another myth being circulated (such as in yesterday's WSJ,  'How Technology Liberates Human Capital') is that it's no biggie if manufacturing or other human labor intense jobs (trucking, restaurant waiters, retail) are lost because that human "capital"  is then "freed up for higher level duties" (e.g. mind dominated) leaving robots for the "routine jobs".    But seriously, how many newly unemployed truckers, retail clerks or waiters are really going to go into data processing for quantum computers or even regular computers?  Or teaching, or practicing law?

The fact is most won't. Even those with advanced college degrees aren't assured of "mind jobs" that can keep body and soul together.   The associate professor at university level is becoming a  thing of the past. The percentage of teaching positions occupied by non-tenure-track faculty has more than tripled in the past four decades. According to the Adjunct Project, “Two-thirds of the faculty standing in front of college classrooms each day aren’t full-time or permanent professors.” 

70 percent of college courses offered are now taught by adjuncts — part-timers who are paid a pittance and have no job security. Many indeed, have to go on food stamps along with the minimum wage workers at Mickey D's or Walmart. This has only come to the fore recently with a widely circulated article, 'The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps', published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. See:

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/

So the issue then becomes how do we provide for all these millions of displaced workers in the next 20 to 30 years?   The answer, even now being circulated by the likes of Elon Musk, Marc Andreesen and Robert Reich, is to pay displaced workers a guaranteed basic income.  In essence, given tens of millions will be displaced - most permanently - from work in the next 20-30 years, they are at least owed a basic income, a monthly stipend of $1,000 - 2,000 which of course must be adjusted for inflation.

This is not some totally novel idea either. As the authors (Phillippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght)  of the new book, 'Basic Income'  make clear, it was conceived as long ago as the 16th century by scholar Juan Luis Vives. Even Thomas Paine, author of the pamphlet 'Common Sense' that incited the American Revolution, proposed the government should pay 10 pounds per year to every person age 50 or over, needy or not.

Authors Van Parijs and Vanderborght, meanwhile, make a strong case that basic income should be universal because stipends aimed only at the poor or jobless "have an intrinsic tendency to turn their beneficiaries into a permanent class of welfare claimants".  Well, maybe, but maybe not. NO one on his or her own wants to be thought of as a slacker or parasite, but if it means getting food into your kid's mouth that sort of false pride goes by the backboards.

So the time has come, especially now with the automation bogey. All over the world, sensible and intelligent people are talking guaranteeing basic incomes for citizens as a viable policy.Half of all Canadians want it. The Swiss have had a referendum on it. The American media is all over it: The New York Times’ Annie Lowrey considered basic income as an answer to an economy that leaves too many people behind, while Matt Bruenig and Elizabeth Stoker of The Atlantic wrote about it as a way to reduce poverty.

The benefits ae indisputable, and arguably greater than more F35s or MOAB bombs:

1) It would help fight poverty: America is the richest country in the world, yet widespread poverty continues to afflict us. (See above for the low -wage bottleneck reasons for this!)

Matt Bruenig calculated that by giving everybody a mere $3,000 a year, including children (who would receive the money through their parents), we could potentially cut poverty in half.

2)  It would be good for the economy: A basic guaranteed income has the potential to positively impact the economy in several ways, which is why economists from John Kenneth Galbraith to Milton Friedman have advocated it. The basic problem solved would be low aggregate demand.

3) It would be more efficient than present hodge podge of systems: In the current patchwork of systems confronting poverty, like welfare, food stamps and vouchers, people can fall through the cracks. A guaranteed income could help solve problems caused by rules and restrictions that leave some without subsistence income when they need it. It's automatic nature - merely by having a birth certificate or S.S. number ensures receipt.

4) It supports  basic human dignity: Why is living in dignity not a right? These days, even Americans who get up in the morning every day and report to full-time jobs may not earn enough for a decent standard of living. People like fast-food workers, big-box store employees, caregivers (paid and unpaid, i.e. in families), beauty salon workers, and farm hands often can’t earn enough to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads

Of course, the knuckle draggers will howl like stuck banshees at all of this:

"Get money for doin' nuthin'? Are you nuts? Where's the money gonna come from to support it?"

Easy, Sparky! We stop acting like a World Empire - projecting our self-interest hither, thither and yon -  spending trillions a year on military occupations, military toys (like the F 35) and adventures, and start taking care of our people at home, and of course, tending to our crumbling infrastructure. 

We do not need 4,400 military bases all over the world, or super size MOAB Bombs at $ 15 million each. Nor can we be the permanent cops of the world. It is madness to believe so.  It is now time to take care of business at home and an automatic basic income would go a long way in that regard. The basic axiom of economics now is that ever more humans will be made redundant over time due to automation. Nowhere near even 50 percent of them will land in new, 'mental' jobs as "recycled human capital".  Hence, they will need financial support.