The government and the press that we deserve

Economist's View: 'Robots and Economic Luddites'

The good bits:

It is amazing how the media have managed to hype the fear of robots taking our jobs at the same time that they have built up fears over huge budget deficits bankrupting the country. You don't see the connection? Maybe you should be an economics reporter for a leading national news outlet.

So they scare us with contradictory narratives: Robots are stealing then jobs, and there are too few workers paying too little in taxes to support all those darned old folks.

Some confused souls may say that the problem may not be an economic one, but rather a fiscal problem. The government can't raise the tax revenue to pay for both the Social Security and Medicare for the elderly and the education of our kids. This is confused because if we are living in the world where the robots are doing all the work then the government really doesn't need to raise tax revenue, it can just print the money it needs to back its payments.

Okay, now everyone is completely appalled. The government is just going to print trillions of dollars? That will send inflation through the roof, right? Not in the world where robots are doing all the work it won't. If we print money it will create more demands for goods and services, which the robots will be happy to supply. As every intro econ graduate knows, inflation is a story of too much money chasing too few goods and services. But in the robots do everything story, the goods and services are quickly generated to meet the demand. Where's the inflation, robots demanding higher wages?

But the bottom line is this: Are we  or are we not in control of our own society? Will we let the servants of the plutocrats in the media scare us away from an equitable distribution of the fruits of a wealthy society?

There can of course be issues of distribution. If the one percent are able to write laws that allow them to claim everything the robots produce then they can make most of us very poor. But this is still a story of society of plenty. We can have all the food, shelter, health care, clean energy, etc. that we need; the robots can do it for us.

"I wonder if he'll remember that he's a duck, and he can fly" (Bugs Bunny)
Daffy duck runs off cliff and falls to the ground)
"Guess not."

We have the government, and the press for that matter, that we, in our ignorance and fear, deserve.