You-know-who said he would bring jobs back to America. He can’t. Blaming free trade agreements misses the point. American jobs may have gone to lower-paid workers in Mexico, or China, or Bangladesh. But they won’t come back.

            The missing jobs will be done by automated equipment. These robots don’t beep and squawk like R2D2 and C3P0. And no one would consider them loveable.

            But they don’t get paid anything. They never go on strike, never take sick leave, never demand pension plans. They can work three shifts around the clock, if necessary, day after day.

            And they make fewer mistakes than human workers do.

            That was not always true. About 40 years ago, I’ve read, General Motors invested heavily in automated assembly lines. The robots were unsophisticated, by today’s standards. They did one job, and they did it exactly as their mechanical movements were set up to do. If an auto body rolling along the line didn’t stop exactly where it should, GM’s mechanical marvels welded the fender into place anyway.

            Today’s robots are equipped to see and touch. If the fender doesn’t line up perfectly with the body, they adjust. Even better than human workers.

            Cars have never been better built. Or safer.

Making human labour obsolete

            Automation means that exported jobs are only a short-term solution. Wages in those countries will rise, inevitably, as standards of living rise; even a low-wage economy offers more than a no-wage economy. But as wages rise, corporations will replace even low-paid workers with cheaper robots.

            It’s already happening with taxis. With bank ATMs. With self-service cashiers at hardware chains.

            Indeed, it has already happened in our own households. A display at the Ontario Science demonstrated how each modern appliance displaced human servants. Even a modest home today has a vacuum cleaner, if not a central vac system. It has a furnace. A water heater. Electric lights. A washing machine, and probably a drier too. A dishwasher. A stove with a cooking top and an automatic oven.

            Every one of those machines replaced a human being’s job. Someone used to come in to handle menial tasks. Every modern household now enjoys a standard of living once possible only in a manor house employing a dozen or more servants.

            The only sector where jobs are still growing is the service industry. Baristas serving fancy coffee and donuts to people with time on their hands. Anonymous voices in telephone call centres. Waitresses in cocktail bars.

            Who knows how long those jobs will last before automation replaces them too.

Fiscal crisis

            The growth of automated workers poses big problems for future governments. Because robots don’t buy anything, they don’t pay sales taxes. Because they don’t get paid, they don’t pay income taxes.

            There go the two main sources of government revenue.

            In this new context, it seems to me, under-developed nations may have a temporary advantage. They still have wage economies that they can tax.

            The industrial nations will face an unpalatable choice. Either they have to tax corporations and wealthy owners more heavily. Or they have to cut the services offered everyone else.

            The U.S. seems to have already chosen the second option.

            An administration run by billionaires believes, body and soul, that wealth trickles down FROM the wealthy. It’s the same mindset that justified the manor house – a wealthy aristocracy boosted the economy by hiring all those servants.

            In reality, wealth flows the other way. It trickles down TO the wealthy.

Stimulating the economy

            Bible Bill Aberhart, premier of Alberta from 1935-1943 and founder of the Social Credit Party, understood this apparent anomaly. The Great Depression, he said, resulted from people not having money to spend. So he proposed giving $25 to every Albertan; no strings attached.

            His rationale was simple. If you give $25 to poor people, they will spend it immediately on their needs. Thus they stimulate the economy. People who already have money don’t need to spend that $25. Besides, as owners and managers, they will collect part of every $25 that the poor people spend.

            It’s claimed that Aberhart’s notions didn’t work. That’s not true – they were never tried. Aberhart’s patrons baulked at such radical ideas.

            In the 1970s, Manitoba experimented with something similar, called Mincome. The experiment ended after four years. University of Manitoba professor Evelyn Forget contends hospitalizations dropped significantly; children stayed in school longer; accidents fell.

            Ontario and Quebec are now considering the possibilities of a guaranteed annual income of some kind; Finland has already instituted one.

            But don’t expect it in the U.S.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Apparently immigrants are a hot-button issue. 

For example, Irene Wilson sounded off, “Why don't these people turn themselves in and seek asylum in the U.S., not Canada?  What are they hiding?

            “How do we determine which ones are not radical?  Radical Islamists are not compassionate, decent or hospitable.  They do not want to accept our way of life, nor respect our Christian religions.  They come here wanting to change our Christian beliefs, our legal system into Sharia Law and if we allow thousands more in this country that will eventually happen. They are just as dangerous as the Hitler regime was during World War ll.

            “I recently read an article referring to world racism.  This article listed Muslims as being one of most racist people on earth and our race as one of the most tolerant. 

            “I certainly do not agree with your last paragraph.  That is turning a blind eye to the truth.”

Rob Brown countered part of Irene’s argument: “To say that the US is a ‘safe country’ for immigrants or refugees is a very bad joke or a sign of questionable sanity. President Trump is turning his country into a killing zone for people who are not white-skinned. And even some of those people find the U.S. is not particularly safe, especially when they speak out against the hatred whipped up by the president.”

Isabel Gibson focused on Scott Gilmore’s characterization of opponents to immigration as “bigoted leeches,” and continued, “And we can accept that not everyone who voices concern is a bigoted leech. One of the hardest things we have to do is to learn how to discuss these sorts of issues with accusing others of bigotry, or stupidity.”

Allan Baker “particularly appreciated the calculations that you did to respond to the fear that our new neighbours will ‘subvert’ the local culture. Your aspirations to live in a country where we are generous, hopeful and loving are similar to mine.”

Helen Arnott noted, “I'm in the middle of fundraising to sponsor a refugee family … Your article is encouraging.”

Bob Rollwagen looked at the electoral implications: “Unfortunately, we have one of the wannabe-government parties running an anything-goes leadership scramble where the person who gets their own shoes on first can be leader, and they are worried that the other leaderless party might scoop the issue that wins the day.”

In last week’s column, Bob Rollwagen asked for information about government budgets and poverty. Judyth Mermelstein provided some data about Manitoba's basic income experiment in the 1970s – some of which I have used in the closing paragraphs of my column above.

            Judyth quoted professor Evelyn Forget: “They found that hospitalizations in the community decreased by 8.5 per cent during the period of the experiment. I would say if we could find a drug that cut all hospitalizations by 8.5 per cent, we'd be putting it in our water supply. Almost nothing [else] we do in health care has an impact of this magnitude.” [http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/02/27/news/heres-medicine-make-canadas-healthcare-system-even-stronger-doctor-says]”

            Judyth continued, “Elsewhere, it's been calculated that every dollar spent housing the homeless (barebones studio apartment) saves $7 in healthcare, social services, law enforcement, etc.”

            Referring to a study in Medicine Hat, she wrote, “The cost of housing the homeless was far less than the cost of the emergency services needed by the homeless while they were living on the street.”

            According to Jaime Rogers, a Medicine Hat housing official, “The reduction in days in jail alone pays for the program.” The average homeless person costs taxpayers $120,000 a year, while it costs just $18,000 to house someone and provide the necessary support.

            As I’ve also noted above, Judyth commented, “Every dollar added to a poor person's budget tends to be spent in a way that benefits society: i.e., on food, utilities, transport, etc. in the local economy; on education that yields future GDP; on consumer goods like clothing that help manufacturing, etc. Whereas the same dollar added to a wealthy person's budget tends to be socked away somewhere protected from taxation or invested in non-productive financial products. In other words, income redistribution downwards underlay the prosperous 20th-century economy and rising life-expectancy, whereas income redistribution upwards has led to closing factories and stores, deteriorating public health, and financial ‘bubbles’ ending in crises. It's no accident that the U.S. is in worse shape than Canada, and deteriorating further under the ‘greed is good’ ideology now running rampant.”

Whew!

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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PROMOTION STUFF…

            Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca

            Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com

            Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net