Japan Socially Breaking Down After Two Lost Decades.

[Big Orange]

Oh dear, things have gone economically stangnant for so long in Japan and a stark wealth/employment gap between young and old, we've potentially got two lost generations now and a painful shift in Japan's society (I can't scan the long article from Daily Finance for some security/copyright related reason).

[LadyTevar]

It worked fine for me...

Japan's Economic Stagnation Is Creating a Nation of Lost Youths
By CHARLES HUGH SMITH

What happens to a generation of young people when:

* They are told to work hard and go to college, yet after graduating they find few permanent job opportunities?
* Many of the jobs that are available are part-time, temporary or contract labor?
* These insecure jobs pay one-third of what their fathers earned?
* The low pay makes living at home the only viable option?
* Poor economic conditions persist for 10, 15 and 20 years in a row?

For an answer, turn to Japan. The world's second-largest economy has stagnated in just this fashion for almost 20 years, and the consequences for the "lost generations" that have come of age in the "lost decades" have been dire. In many ways, Japan's social conventions are fraying under the relentless pressure of an economy in
seemingly permanent decline.

While the world sees Japan as the home of consumer technology juggernauts such as Sony and Toshiba and high-tech "bullet trains" (shinkansen), beneath the bright lights of Tokyo and the evident wealth generated by decades of hard work and Japan Inc.'s massive global export machine lies a different reality: increasing poverty and decreasing opportunity for the nation's youth.

Suddenly, It's Haves and Have Nots

The gap between extremes of income at the top and bottom of society -- measured by the Gini coefficient -- has been growing in Japan for years. To the surprise of many outsiders, once-egalitarian Japan is becoming a nation of haves and have-nots.

The media in Japan have popularized the phrase "kakusa shakai," literally meaning "gap society." As the elite slice prospers and younger workers are increasingly marginalized, the media has focused on the shrinking middle class. For example, a best-selling book offers tips on how to get by on an annual income of less than 3 million yen ($34,800). Two million yen ($23,000) has become the de-facto poverty line for millions of Japanese, especially outside high-cost Tokyo.

More than one-third of the workforce is part-time as companies have shed the famed Japanese lifetime employment system, nudged along by government legislation that abolished restrictions on flexible hiring a few years ago. Temp agencies have expanded to fill the need for contract jobs as permanent job opportunities have dwindled.

Many fear that as the generation of salaried baby boomers dies out, the country's economic slide might accelerate. Japan's share of the global economy has fallen below 10% from a peak of 18% in 1994. Were this decline to continue, income disparities would widen and threaten to pull this once-stable society apart.

Downsized Expectations, Opting Out

The Japanese term ''freeter'' is a hybrid word that originated in the late 1980s, just as Japan's property and stock market bubbles reached their zenith. It combines the English ''free'' and the German ''arbeiter,'' or worker, and describes a lifestyle that's radically different from the buttoned-down rigidity of the permanent-employment economy: freedom to move between jobs. This absence of loyalty to a company is totally alien to previous generations of driven Japanese "salarymen'' who were expected to uncomplainingly turn in 70-hour work weeks at the same company for decades, all in exchange for lifetime employment.

Many young people have come to mistrust big corporations, having seen their fathers or uncles eased out of ''lifetime'' jobs in the relentless downsizing of the past 20 years. From the point of view of the younger generations, the loyalty their parents unstintingly gave to companies was wasted.

The freeters have also come to see diminishing value in the grueling study and tortuous examinations required to compete for the elite jobs in academia, industry and government. With opportunities fading, long years of study are perceived as pointless. In contrast, the freeter lifestyle is one of hopping between short-term jobs and devoting energy and time to foreign travel, hobbies or other interests.

As long ago as 2001, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare estimated that 50% of high school graduates and 30% of college graduates quit their jobs within three years of leaving school. The downside is permanently shrunken income and prospects. These trends have led to an ironic moniker for the freeter lifestyle: dame-ren (no good people). The dame-ren get by on odd jobs, low-cost living and drastically diminished expectations.

Changed Men

The decline of permanent employment has also led to the unraveling of social mores and conventions. The young men who reject their fathers' macho work ethic are derisively called "herbivores" or "grass-eaters" because they're uncompetitive and uncommitted to work.

Take the bestselling book The Herbivorous Ladylike Men Who Are Changing Japan, by Megumi Ushikubo, president of Infinity, a Tokyo marketing firm. Ushikubo claims that about two-thirds of all Japanese men aged 20-34 are now partial or total "grass-eaters." "People who grew up in the bubble era [of the 1980s] really feel like they were let down. They worked so hard and it all came to nothing," says Ushikubo. "So the men who came after them have changed."

This has spawned a disconnect between genders so pervasive that Japan is experiencing a "social recession" in marriage, births and even sex, all of which are declining.

With a wealth and income divide widening along generational lines, many young Japanese are attaching themselves to their parents. Surveys indicate that roughly two-thirds of freeters live at home. Freeters ''who have no children, no dreams, hope or job skills could become a major burden on society, as they contribute to the decline in the birthrate and in social insurance contributions,'' Masahiro Yamada, a sociology professor wrote in a magazine essay titled, ''Parasite Singles Feed on Family System.''

Take My Son, Please

"Parasite singles" is yet another harsh term for some Japanese youths. It refers to those who never leave home, sparking an almost tragicomical countertrend of Japanese parents who actively seek mates to marry off their "parasite single" offspring as the only way to get them out of the house.

Even more extreme is hikikomori, or "acute social withdrawal," a condition in which the young live-at-home person nearly walls himself off from the world by never leaving his room. Though acute social withdrawal in Japan affect both genders, impossibly high expectations for males from middle- and upper-middle-class families has led many sons, typically the eldest, to refuse to leave home. The trigger for this complete withdrawal from social interaction is often one or more traumatic episodes of social or academic failure. That is, the inability to meet standards of conduct and success that can no longer be met in diminished-opportunity Japan.

The unraveling of Japan's social fabric as a result of eroding economic conditions for young people offers Americans a troubling glimpse of the high costs of long-term economic stagnation.

[Darmalus]

Looks like no 'new blood' is entering the upper levels of Japanese society because of this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10543126 (from July 13)

Revealing Japan's low-tech belly
By Michael Fitzpatrick BBC News

Police stations without computers, 30-year-old "on hold" tapes grinding out tinny renditions of Greensleeves, ATMs that close when the bank does, suspect car engineering, and kerosene heaters but no central heating.

A dystopian vision of a nation with technology stuck in an Orwellian time warp? Not at all. These are aspects of contemporary, low-tech Japan that most visitors miss as they look around the hi-tech nation that its government, electronics industry and tourism board are keen to promote.

Tech-savvy internationalised companies such as Panasonic characterise that familiar but smaller segment of Japan Inc. The second much larger, and often subsidised economy, comprises overstaffed family-run firms that are decidedly low-tech and high-priced.

Digital divide

When the business and tech-focused Fast Company magazine released its list of most innovative companies in 2010 only one Japanese company made the selection, and that was a retailer.

So what could account for Japan's lack of international clout tech-wise? Some blame its focus on the domestic market, a low-quality, inefficient workforce and poor working conditions. There is also the digital divide.

Despite the country's showy internet speeds and some of the cheapest broadband around many Japanese are happier doing things the old way.

Figures for internet users in Japan remain around 70% compared to neighbouring South Korea's 82%.

And even among those online there is a divide between those who are dependent on the internet and those who could live without it.

One government poll shows that although 44% of Japanese use the internet at least once or twice a month, the rest responded that they use it "hardly at all" or "not at all".

Considering Japan's top heavy society of over 50s, many of whom have not got to grips with the internet, and who make up 30% of the population and that figure begins to make sense.

New paradigm

Many of Japan's older men - who are those most likely to run a business - have a marked preference to stay offline even in the office, says Tokyo-based entrepreneur Terrie Lloyd.

"There is a clear cut-off for Japanese bosses who know how to use PCs and mobile web-capable devices and those who don't," he said.

"The easiest way to tell is whether they have an e-mail address on the all-important name card. If they're over 50 and don't have an e-mail address, it's a dead giveaway that you either use the phone or forget about contacting them."

Some say this technophobic demographic helps explain why many of Japan's industries do not benefit from IT.

"The world shifted into an entirely new paradigm, not only of wealth creation (which moved away from manufacturing hard goods to software and intellectual property), but also of culture," says Alex Kerr, author of an in-depth analysis of Japan's contemporary ills, Dogs and Demons.

"Oblivious to all this, Japan's government ministries, colleges, and big industry went on doing everything the old time- tested Japanese way."

Digital publishing

This backward approach surprises many people.

Talking in Tokyo at a symposium organised by Wired magazine 15 years ago, Nicholas Negroponte director of the Media Lab at MIT warned Japan against becoming one of the "digital homeless."

The country's refusal to shift to digital economies in some areas means this prophecy, to an extent, has come alarmingly true.

Japan's publishing industry is just one example. For years it has resisted change and only recently moved to accommodate a perceived shift to digitisation and the rise of the e-book.

"It goes without saying that eventually Japan will have to find a way to make peace with digital publishing," says tech analyst Steven Nagata. "But the majors of the publishing industry have made it clear that it will not happen until they have no other choice,"

Elsewhere in Japan the forces of reaction are only now starting to go along with the pivotal changes offered by hi-tech and globalisation.

Efforts have been slow. Japan's mighty mobile phone companies sneered at the iPhone, then denied it would impact on Japan, and only now after its success there are they considering their options.

According to Seed Planning of Tokyo 1.7m iPhones were sold in Japan in 2009, giving it a market share of 15%. In 2008 its share stood at 10%.
Finger pointing

Some critics have accused the country's mandarins of restricting innovation.

"The good days walked out the door and no-one noticed, because we were never told of the danger; rather, missed a golden opportunity to carry the innovation fire and spread it forever," says blogger Hideki Onda.

"Political issues and bureaucracy caused our profit from the 70's to 90's to be spent on a regional and sociopolitical food chain," he said.

"And now, for example, Japan cannot make a sensible decision on the likes of spectrum use freed up by TV going digital. It's a big mess."

Although some ministries were visionary, in implementing projects to deliver the world's first cheap, mass market fibre-optic broadband service for example, many others are seen as antediluvian in their attitudes.

Peep into the offices in Tokyo's administration district and you find out why. Here PCs are rare and work carries on in the slow lane.

"Japanese banks, post offices, government offices, all are staffed with three to five times the employees because they must do every process once on paper and then again on computer," says Taro Hitachi a technical editor and patent reader at Hitachi.

"Do you see the pattern here? Japanese aren't all that happy about spiteful machines and distrust automation."

This technological divide goes hand in hand with Japan's much touted "Galapagos" status. Like the plants and creatures on those islands Japan's tech standards and business practices have developed a unique character incompatible with anything beyond its borders.

Mr Onda thinks this Galapagos approach was an error perpetuated by the civil servants.

"Anything as foreign and revolutionary as Apple's WYSIWYG GUI operating system will never be accepted, even if it was the best. You see Apple had not paid respects to the Japanese bureaucrats," he said.

To illustrate this, Mr Onda relates a story from 1996 when Apple was keen to puts its computers into Japanese schools. The answer from the Japanese education minister at the time was a curt "No thank-you".

A puzzled Michael Spindler (then Apple's CEO) asked his Japanese colleague when they might return to try again.

In response, his colleague said: "When the 60's-era floor indicator above the ministry's elevator door goes digital."

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

One has the understand that for the Japanese technology giants to be successful, they had to go abroad. They also have to base a number of their headquarter operations abroad. With that in mind, one then understands why Japanese youth are down without jobs. Coupled with the reluctance to venture out of the country and lack of good language skills, you have a recipe for disaster. Of course, the lack of good language skills is also rooted in education policy...

[AniThyng]

It's actually fairly surprising to an outside observer to learn the first time around just how backwords Japan's IT infrastructure really is. The "High tech" Japan really is a facade in many ways.

[Uraniun235]

Man, that's pretty nuts. You realize a lot of those kids are never going to have productive lives? Imagine you're prime minister or president and you've got a whole generation of people with nothing useful on their resume for the past 15-20 years, and nearly every business won't want anything to do with them. There aren't nearly enough menial jobs for that big a proportion of the populace. How do you begin to deal with that? Do you just write off millions of citizens? Do you accept and formalize the creation of a permanent class of people who live off of welfare and parents? Do you basically put them all to make-work (digging/refilling ditches) forever? I haven't a clue.


I don't think we'll see the exact same problems here - for example, I doubt the US would experience a million-plus shut-ins - but given enough time we could have pretty big problems of our own (yes yes on top of the problems we already have, thank you for being so clever).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

It's actually fairly surprising to an outside observer to learn the first time around just how backwords Japan's IT infrastructure really is. The "High tech" Japan really is a facade in many ways.

Nothing surprising. For many people of the age of 60-70 and above, many never really handled computers much in their twenties etc. To them computers are a new fangled tool that these days they could just hire a secretary to handle.

The only surprisng fact was that they enforced this sort of draconian policies on their turf.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Man, that's pretty nuts. You realize a lot of those kids are never going to have productive lives? Imagine you're prime minister or president and you've got a whole generation of people with nothing useful on their resume for the past 15-20 years, and nearly every business won't want anything to do with them. There aren't nearly enough menial jobs for that big a proportion of the populace. How do you begin to deal with that? Do you just write off millions of citizens? Do you accept and formalize the creation of a permanent class of people who live off of welfare and parents? Do you basically put them all to make-work (digging/refilling ditches) forever? I haven't a clue.

If you had the money, what you could do is either give them all six month or year long placements in the civil service somewhere, or pay companies to give them such a placement, in order to get something worthwhile on their CV. The problem, of course, is that (according to the article, at least) part of the reason they have nothing on their CV is because they've seen the system fuck over their older relatives and want no part in it. Whether they've got anything on their CV or not is pretty irrelevant in that situation.

To be honest, I can't blame them. What's the point of putting in huge amounts of effort in school and university if it then doesn't lead to a permanent or long term job?

[Patrick Degan]

Gee, you steadily impoverish the middle and working classes, shut millions of youths out of upward mobility, and the fabric of society begins to disintegrate. Whoduthunkit, eh? Think our own business conservatives might see that this really wouldn't be a good idea to bring about in our own country? No, of course not —they're too stupid greedy focussed on business priorities to consider it.

[Lusankya]

It's actually fairly surprising to an outside observer to learn the first time around just how backwords Japan's IT infrastructure really is. The "High tech" Japan really is a facade in many ways.

I remember being shocked at how completely useless their "lol you're not Japanese, sorry, kthx bai" ATM system was, as well as their completely weird and incomprehensible subway ticket machines, which I fortunately didn't have to deal with much due to having a JR pass. For some reason, I had this idea that if I could go to some crap-ass little city in the middle of Henan and still be able to use my Mastercard like a real person, then I should be able to do the same thing in Osaka. I kind of expected it to be more convenient in China due to Japan being more developed, but really what's happened is Japan's finished building all of their stuff, while China's still in the construction phase (with the bits they have finished actually having a decent user interface).

[Johonebesus]

Did anyone else feel a disconnect between the two articles? On the one hand they are suffering badly from too few jobs, on the other hand their businesses have too many employees because they aren't sufficiently modernized. How exactly do we form a working economy with low unemployment when the technology leads to higher productivity and therefore fewer employees? For decades the fear that automation will destroy jobs has been either dismissed as Luddite or just shrugged off with, "what can you do, you can't stop progress." So far about the only answer offered has been reeducation, but that doesn't create jobs. Is there a way to compromise so that there can be technological progress without lower employment needs? Would we be better off if companies were forced to be less efficient just to make work for people?

[Setzer]

Now I'm reminded of an anecdote about the Emperor Vespasian. Someone showed him plans for a machine to transport stone columns great distances, and the Emperor refused to build it, saying "Sorry, I have the working classes to feed."

[Broomstick]

Did anyone else feel a disconnect between the two articles? On the one hand they are suffering badly from too few jobs, on the other hand their businesses have too many employees because they aren't sufficiently modernized. How exactly do we form a working economy with low unemployment when the technology leads to higher productivity and therefore fewer employees? For decades the fear that automation will destroy jobs has been either dismissed as Luddite or just shrugged off with, "what can you do, you can't stop progress." So far about the only answer offered has been reeducation, but that doesn't create jobs. Is there a way to compromise so that there can be technological progress without lower employment needs? Would we be better off if companies were forced to be less efficient just to make work for people?

Sure - instead of "full time" work being defined as 40 hours per week define it as 30. Oh, and reduce the abusive bullshit where "professional" level people can be forced to work 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week with no overtime or increase in pay. In other words, instead of overworking a small number of people you use more people to get the same amount of work done with the same efficiency. Also, folks will have more time for family, social life, hobbies, sleep, sports/exercise and will be less stressed and probably healthier.

[LionElJonson]

Did anyone else feel a disconnect between the two articles? On the one hand they are suffering badly from too few jobs, on the other hand their businesses have too many employees because they aren't sufficiently modernized. How exactly do we form a working economy with low unemployment when the technology leads to higher productivity and therefore fewer employees? For decades the fear that automation will destroy jobs has been either dismissed as Luddite or just shrugged off with, "what can you do, you can't stop progress." So far about the only answer offered has been reeducation, but that doesn't create jobs. Is there a way to compromise so that there can be technological progress without lower employment needs? Would we be better off if companies were forced to be less efficient just to make work for people?

Sure - instead of "full time" work being defined as 40 hours per week define it as 30. Oh, and reduce the abusive bullshit where "professional" level people can be forced to work 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week with no overtime or increase in pay. In other words, instead of overworking a small number of people you use more people to get the same amount of work done with the same efficiency. Also, folks will have more time for family, social life, hobbies, sleep, sports/exercise and will be less stressed and probably healthier.

More people for the same efficiency? Even if you save money by having them work less, you'll get a more inefficient project simply by the fact you've got more people involved.

Seriously, though, I don't see too much of a problem. Vast swathes of the population will become unemployed once the post-scarcity economy gets underway; this is just a taste of what it'd be like after it.

[tim31]

You just have to look at the once-might auto industry to get the idea; only Toyota and Honda are independent. The rest are owned by American and European groups. This is, like with the US auto industry, a product of their own short-sightedness.

[ShadowDragon8685]

More people for the same efficiency? Even if you save money by having them work less, you'll get a more inefficient project simply by the fact you've got more people involved.

Seriously, though, I don't see too much of a problem. Vast swathes of the population will become unemployed once the post-scarcity economy gets underway; this is just a taste of what it'd be like after it.

Are you impaired, somehow? Are you, seriously?

Even ignoring the chances of us ever coming up with a post-scarcity economy, the fact remains that right now we do not have a post-scarcity economy, we have a scarcity economy! (Nonwithstanding the fact that those who benefit most from a scarcity economy aren't going to want to transition to a post-scarcity economy anyway.)

You know what happens when vast swathes of the population becomes unemployed in a scarcity economy? Bad Things happen[/i]. People start to go hungry, they start to want for things they need, as opposed to merely things they want. I don't need a Porsche. I want a Porsche, I want something that can handle and is fun to drive, but I need something that drives at all, to have any hope of employment.

I don't need gourmet meals. i may want them (I don't, actually, but hypothetically), but I don't need them. What I do need is food! I don't need a ten-bathroom McMansion on a hill somewhere, what I do need is shelter from the elements. I don't need Italian leather or $400 sneakers with some athlete's name on it made for $.50 in some third-world shithole, but I need shoes.

When people start not-having those things that they need, then they start to look at those who have them and angrily demanding to know why they cannot have it. This is followed shortly by revolution, in which they take what they need by force.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Are you impaired, somehow? Are you, seriously?

Even ignoring the chances of us ever coming up with a post-scarcity economy, the fact remains that right now we do not have a post-scarcity economy, we have a scarcity economy! (Nonwithstanding the fact that those who benefit most from a scarcity economy aren't going to want to transition to a post-scarcity economy anyway.)

You know what happens when vast swathes of the population becomes unemployed in a scarcity economy? Bad Things happen[/i]. People start to go hungry, they start to want for things they need, as opposed to merely things they want. I don't need a Porsche. I want a Porsche, I want something that can handle and is fun to drive, but I need something that drives at all, to have any hope of employment.

I don't need gourmet meals. i may want them (I don't, actually, but hypothetically), but I don't need them. What I do need is food! I don't need a ten-bathroom McMansion on a hill somewhere, what I do need is shelter from the elements. I don't need Italian leather or $400 sneakers with some athlete's name on it made for $.50 in some third-world shithole, but I need shoes.

When people start not-having those things that they need, then they start to look at those who have them and angrily demanding to know why they cannot have it. This is followed shortly by revolution, in which they take what they need by force.

Unfortunately, not everybody can be a highly educated specialist. There's less and less call for unskilled and semi-skilled labour, and that trend isn't going to reverse itself unless something drastic happens. If, in fifty years, menial tasks like cleaning and heavy lifting are done by robots under the supervision of one or two humans, for example, then that removes the employment opportunities for huge swathes of unskilled labour. I could imagine the same thing happening on farms and the like - robopickers instead of people. It's a logical extrapolation of the trends that have shrunk employment in industry; more and more automation reduces the number of employees needed. Eventually, it will reduce that need enough that there are always many more people than available jobs.

Given that it is impossible for everybody to be a skilled worker, and even if it was possible, there would never be the demand to get all of them employed, it is inevitable that there will be a huge class of people who can't get work because the jobs they're actually qualified for can be done by machines and a couple of humans. That day might not be just around the corner, but it's going to get here eventually, and there will be nothing we can do about it other than pay the unemployable benefits for the whole of their lives.

[Guardsman Bass]

Sure - instead of "full time" work being defined as 40 hours per week define it as 30. Oh, and reduce the abusive bullshit where "professional" level people can be forced to work 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week with no overtime or increase in pay. In other words, instead of overworking a small number of people you use more people to get the same amount of work done with the same efficiency. Also, folks will have more time for family, social life, hobbies, sleep, sports/exercise and will be less stressed and probably healthier.

More people for the same efficiency? Even if you save money by having them work less, you'll get a more inefficient project simply by the fact you've got more people involved.

We already do something like that, in the form of the 40-hour workweek (which was more or less shaped into existence by legislation for the same reasons why there are proposals to reduce it down to a 30-hour work-week now).

I agree that it would probably be less efficient for the employer, since there are often a number of fixed labor costs per employee (which is why it's usually cheaper to work existing employees more than to hire new ones). I suspect that it would also lead to a rise in wages, since the employer has more bargaining power over setting wages when the worker(s) in question have to worry more about the un- and under-employed people with similar skills who are competing for the same position.

That day might not be just around the corner, but it's going to get here eventually, and there will be nothing we can do about it other than pay the unemployable benefits for the whole of their lives.

Or they'll just drastically reduce working hours, down to 10-20 hours a week. Like I said, it's been done before - the 40-hour workweek was proposed and more or less shaped into existence in response to pressure over job losses in the early twentieth century.

[Broomstick]

Did anyone else feel a disconnect between the two articles? On the one hand they are suffering badly from too few jobs, on the other hand their businesses have too many employees because they aren't sufficiently modernized. How exactly do we form a working economy with low unemployment when the technology leads to higher productivity and therefore fewer employees? For decades the fear that automation will destroy jobs has been either dismissed as Luddite or just shrugged off with, "what can you do, you can't stop progress." So far about the only answer offered has been reeducation, but that doesn't create jobs. Is there a way to compromise so that there can be technological progress without lower employment needs? Would we be better off if companies were forced to be less efficient just to make work for people?

Sure - instead of "full time" work being defined as 40 hours per week define it as 30. Oh, and reduce the abusive bullshit where "professional" level people can be forced to work 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week with no overtime or increase in pay. In other words, instead of overworking a small number of people you use more people to get the same amount of work done with the same efficiency. Also, folks will have more time for family, social life, hobbies, sleep, sports/exercise and will be less stressed and probably healthier.

More people for the same efficiency? Even if you save money by having them work less, you'll get a more inefficient project simply by the fact you've got more people involved.

You really have slammed down the Kool-Aid about employees being bad for business, haven't you?

You can only squeeze so much productivity out of a person. After a certain point they are LESS efficient due to stress and exhaustion. Yes, employ more people but collectively they do the same aggregate amount of work (yes, that means each employee likely makes less money, but it's still better than massive numbers of unemployed and idle waiting to riot or revolt). Meanwhile, because your workforce is NOT overworked (and MANY Americans are overworked, they're just so used to it they are no longer aware of it) they are healthier, more alert, more focused, and less likely to get into accidents. This drives down the cost of healthcare, which is a significant burden on business and society. With more leisure time people will pursue leisure time activities, which means the businesses that serve those areas will increase and employ more people.

This was actually tried, once upon a time. Prior to the 1930's the typical American work week was longer, and people usually worked a half day on Saturdays. During the Depression that was cut to 40 hours, giving us the 2-day weekend we've come to know and love, and between that and rules mandating time-and-a-half for overtime (either more than an 8 hour day - 10 or 12 used to not be unusual at the time - or more than 40 hours a week) it encouraged employers to hire more people to get the same amount of work done. The result was a drop in unemployment. Did it cure all ills in society? No, of course not. But it did alleviate the problem and prevent many from falling into utter ruin. I will remind you that the destitute buy nothing, which impacts the economy in a negative manner. The chronically unemployed do not simply vanish into mist.

Seriously, though, I don't see too much of a problem. Vast swathes of the population will become unemployed once the post-scarcity economy gets underway; this is just a taste of what it'd be like after it.

The "post scarcity" meme is a MYTH, like Jesus with the fishes and loaves, and on our current track it will never come to pass. I will point out a KEY DIFFERENCE between reality and your idyllic bullshit - in "post-scarcity" the chronically unemployed still have food, housing, clothes, and entertainment. In reality, they haven't got jack shit. Starvation sucks. Living in a cardboard box sucks. Having nothing to wear but inadequate rags sucks. If you get a large enough group of hungry, half-naked people sitting in their cardboard boxes watching others walk by with who clearly have enough material stuff to have a comfortable life they're going to get notions about taking what they need to survive.

This gets very, very ugly.

[Teebs]

The "post scarcity" meme is a MYTH, like Jesus with the fishes and loaves, and on our current track it will never come to pass. I will point out a KEY DIFFERENCE between reality and your idyllic bullshit - in "post-scarcity" the chronically unemployed still have food, housing, clothes, and entertainment. In reality, they haven't got jack shit. Starvation sucks. Living in a cardboard box sucks. Having nothing to wear but inadequate rags sucks. If you get a large enough group of hungry, half-naked people sitting in their cardboard boxes watching others walk by with who clearly have enough material stuff to have a comfortable life they're going to get notions about taking what they need to survive.

This gets very, very ugly.

While I'm similarly dubious about any post-scarcity society coming into being, certainly in Western Europe I don't think the chronically unemployed are starving or living in cardboard boxes. Obviously there are homeless people, but they tend to be mentally ill or have other problems which prevent them from taking advantage of the state support available to them.

[Broomstick]

Yes. Agreed.

What's the difference? Europe has a decent social safety net. Unquestionably, getting a nice job and a career offers you a better lifestyle than being on the dole, but those on the dole DO have adequate housing, food, clothing, etc. Not lavish by any means, but one could have a comfortable life with one's physical needs taken care of, even if you don't get a lot of your "wants" filled.

This is NOT the case in the US. While we have a certain number of mentally ill people sleeping on the streets our homeless population is mostly mentally and physically normal people who have been unemployed long enough to lose everything. (And not all homeless sleep on the street - when one of my sisters was homeless last year she still slept every night under a roof. It just wasn't her roof. It was the roof of one friend or another's home, and usuay on their couch or in their spare bed. There are a LOT of homeless who are invisible because they've been taken in by someone. That doesn't change the fact they have no home of their own). The US "safety net" is more holes than net.

[Temujin]

It's actually fairly surprising to an outside observer to learn the first time around just how backwords Japan's IT infrastructure really is. The "High tech" Japan really is a facade in many ways.

Yeah, this was quite shocking to me even though I had heard whispers of such problems ever since the 1990s.

Did anyone else feel a disconnect between the two articles? On the one hand they are suffering badly from too few jobs, on the other hand their businesses have too many employees because they aren't sufficiently modernized. How exactly do we form a working economy with low unemployment when the technology leads to higher productivity and therefore fewer employees? For decades the fear that automation will destroy jobs has been either dismissed as Luddite or just shrugged off with, "what can you do, you can't stop progress." So far about the only answer offered has been reeducation, but that doesn't create jobs. Is there a way to compromise so that there can be technological progress without lower employment needs? Would we be better off if companies were forced to be less efficient just to make work for people?

It's conundrum, with no easy solution. The government needs to both insure social welfare, create jobs and reform/restructure the economy. The corporations can't be expected to do it because their only concern is their profit margin, so they must be coerced by the government. However, the corporations have money and the government is corrupt. Hence, while something eventually may get done, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[Temujin]

More people for the same efficiency? Even if you save money by having them work less, you'll get a more inefficient project simply by the fact you've got more people involved.

You really have slammed down the Kool-Aid about employees being bad for business, haven't you?

You can only squeeze so much productivity out of a person. After a certain point they are LESS efficient due to stress and exhaustion. Yes, employ more people but collectively they do the same aggregate amount of work (yes, that means each employee likely makes less money, but it's still better than massive numbers of unemployed and idle waiting to riot or revolt). Meanwhile, because your workforce is NOT overworked (and MANY Americans are overworked, they're just so used to it they are no longer aware of it) they are healthier, more alert, more focused, and less likely to get into accidents. This drives down the cost of healthcare, which is a significant burden on business and society. With more leisure time people will pursue leisure time activities, which means the businesses that serve those areas will increase and employ more people.

This was actually tried, once upon a time. Prior to the 1930's the typical American work week was longer, and people usually worked a half day on Saturdays. During the Depression that was cut to 40 hours, giving us the 2-day weekend we've come to know and love, and between that and rules mandating time-and-a-half for overtime (either more than an 8 hour day - 10 or 12 used to not be unusual at the time - or more than 40 hours a week) it encouraged employers to hire more people to get the same amount of work done. The result was a drop in unemployment. Did it cure all ills in society? No, of course not. But it did alleviate the problem and prevent many from falling into utter ruin. I will remind you that the destitute buy nothing, which impacts the economy in a negative manner. The chronically unemployed do not simply vanish into mist.

I'm wondering if he has also swallowed some Libertopian Kool Aid as well. His statement certainly has a similar stench to it.

Seriously, though, I don't see too much of a problem. Vast swathes of the population will become unemployed once the post-scarcity economy gets underway; this is just a taste of what it'd be like after it.

The "post scarcity" meme is a MYTH, like Jesus with the fishes and loaves, and on our current track it will never come to pass. I will point out a KEY DIFFERENCE between reality and your idyllic bullshit - in "post-scarcity" the chronically unemployed still have food, housing, clothes, and entertainment. In reality, they haven't got jack shit. Starvation sucks. Living in a cardboard box sucks. Having nothing to wear but inadequate rags sucks. If you get a large enough group of hungry, half-naked people sitting in their cardboard boxes watching others walk by with who clearly have enough material stuff to have a comfortable life they're going to get notions about taking what they need to survive.

This gets very, very ugly.

And here we go with his usual Transhumanism will solve everything, at least for me because I'll be immortal, song and dance. Actually, any increases in automation and AI are actually going to make things worse before they get better. The severity will depend on the type of socio-economic policies that exist or are enacted by a given country.

Seriously, change and transition is often painful. While you can often minimize it with the right level of preparedness, our world has been doing the exact opposite; collectively sticking our fingers in our ears and ignoring all the warning signs whether it be resource scarcity, climate change, etc.

[Patrick Degan]

While I'm similarly dubious about any post-scarcity society coming into being, certainly in Western Europe I don't think the chronically unemployed are starving or living in cardboard boxes. Obviously there are homeless people, but they tend to be mentally ill or have other problems which prevent them from taking advantage of the state support available to them.

—for now. But there's no guarantee that we won't see the return of Hoovervilles in this country.

[Surlethe]

Gee, you steadily impoverish the middle and working classes, shut millions of youths out of upward mobility, and the fabric of society begins to disintegrate. Whoduthunkit, eh? Think our own business conservatives might see that this really wouldn't be a good idea to bring about in our own country? No, of course not —they're too stupid greedy focussed on business priorities to consider it.

Because Japan is totally run by Randian libertopians, enacting policies that would make an American business conservative jizz his pants, right?