Too many consumers and not enough producers.

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

The downturn of the economy in recent years was caused to a number of factors: Corruption in the finance industry, the finance industry itself (it creates no new wealth yet draws upon actual wealth), and the welfare state. Today I’m focused on the welfare state and my disgust for it.

When one is paid a sum of money for a task, the practice of holding that money for later use is like saying, “I have completed a task that warrants I eventually consume an amount of goods and/or services in accordance with what this sum of money allots.” By simply holding the money (rather than immediately consuming what is due), the holder is silently agreeing to preserve the goods/services due to him until a later time.

When money is distributed to individuals who complete NO TASKS, the pool of goods and services is shared amongst producer-consumers and pure consumers. This waters down the purchasing power of currency and eventually renders it meaningless. Uneducated consumers view money as an objective medium, and do not understand that goods and services should be consumed only as warranted by the sum currently held. Because they do not understand the former point, they subsequently fail to understand why money loses its purchasing power when more goods and services are drawn upon than necessary.

The monetary system complicates and stupefies the lower echelons of both producer-consumers and pure consumers alike; an unintelligent producer-consumer would be infuriated if a pure consumer were allowed to directly partake in part of the goods and services due to the former. The monetary systems creates an absurd causal link that is nearly impossible for unintelligent people to follow. It is deliberately designed this way so that producers continue to produce, for surely they would stop if they understood that inactive consumers were partaking directly in the fruits of their labor.

I think if we imparted greater monetary understanding on the average producer-consumer, he would agree to vote for legislators who would changes laws to end entitlement programs. Eventually, those who fail to produce (and their worthless offspring) would be allowed to expire because of their inactivity. There would certainly be a brief period of upheaval; the pure consumer would thrash about in an attempt to legitimize its existence, but it would eventually disappear after a great deal of enforcement and suppression.

The remaining culture of producer-consumers would be happier and wealthier. Each citizen would understand the importance of “pulling one’s weight.” How could one fail to understand when surrounded ONLY by producer-consumers? Thus, if a citizen became unable to produce, he would simply allow himself to expire for the greater good, as he would feel too much pride and honor to subsist by the hands of another.

The elderly who saved vast sums of money as producer-consumers could enjoy their retirement years without sharing the proceeds with peers who made poorer decisions earlier on. The elderly who produced during their youthful years and refused to save (the ones who immediately consumed the goods and services due to them) would either go into the care of willing family members or expire.

How truly beautiful society would be if those who produced nothing ceased to exist. People would hate working a lot less if they were not forced to share their hard-earned cash with do-nothings. If only the pure consumers could actually comprehend the shame that ought to be felt by living in such a way.

If you aren’t doing any good for anyone, ask yourself why.

2

If the Welfare state is the one that allows a banker to pay himself £1.2 billion, (of our money), pay the money into his wife’s Monaco bank account, and thereby avoiding £300,000,000 in tax, then I agree I also have a disgust of such a Welfare state.

3

How was the welfare state responsible for the downturn?

Yes, the only useful thing to do in life is to complete tasks for money. People are only worth only as much as they own. And surely everyone who works for a living can afford to save enough for retirement. If they haven’t earned enough to support themselves when they can no longer work they deserve to die because they clearly didn’t work hard enough. Society does not need them, in fact, it would be better off without them. The more i think about these worthless do-nothing sponges, the stronger my contempt grows. And as my contempt grows, my eyes are opened to all the ways in which poor and unemployed people are responsible for so much, if not all, of my own bad fortune. If only they weren’t taking my money from me, i could truly live the life i always dreamed. They’re really the only thing holding me back, and it’s not fair. Not fair at all. i hate them and wish they would die.

4

I resent the govt not the recipients. If the govts gives you a check then earn it if you are physically and mentally able. There are plenty of menial or specialized jobs that need be done.

5
6

Thats a coin toss
If you are doing good for others then you help yourself in some fashion. Yet do too much for others you harm yourself. Balance is best but, hard to find.

7

Totally wrong ! we have way more producers than consmuers by a long shot, we have huge excess capacity, all EU car factories (except germany) are running at less than 80 % production and you think we don’t have enough producers ?!?!

The USA was used to building 2 million homes a year, now it can’t even reacvh a million and so on, the Chinese have huge factiroes, we could produce thousands of times more goods without even increasing the number of workers, or just increasing them by very little.

No way, jose’, you have it all wrong and upisde down. We have we too few consumers for what can be produced, hence no jobs, no economy moving and so forth. We need huge amount of increased consumption more than anything else!

8

I think, given your excitement, you have overstated your case.

Item 1.

“we have way more producers than consmuers by a long shot”

Even if we have excess capacity in some industries, this can never be true, as each producer can also be a consumer. Thus at all times there will never be more producers than consumers.
Whilst you might be right that there is more production that can be consumed that is not what you actually said.

Item 2

As for housing. It is true that in the US there are many empty homes. What you are ignoring is the simply fact that there are MORE homeless people than there are empty homes. This is a personal tragedy for millions world-wide. Whilst houses remain empty there are many people without a home.
Even if you were to fill all the empty houses, there would still be many homeless.

9

nameta9 has been singing this song for several years and at first, I disagreed with his ideas. Now, I’m not so sure. If you look down the road just a little, robotics are claiming more and more jobs in the industrialized nations. Every year the robots become more sophisticated and less expensive to own and operate. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that within a decade or so most of the menial or specialized jobs mentioned by Kris will also be roboticized. To be sure, there will always be jobs that require a human, but at what cost? Those jobs left to humans aren’t going to pay very well. In a very short time, there will be all the producers we could possibly want and very few consumers.

It may be that producers are still to be considered consumers, but that is today. Just what will a robot consume? A gallon of lubricant per year and electrical power? A hundred robots needing the services of 3 or 4 humans? Robots displace the need for humans and it follows that they displace those humans as consumers. What sort of work will succeeding generations find that allows them to be consumers?

nameta9 isn’t wrong, just a bit early…

10

A couple of problems here I think.

A moments thought will tell you that this scenario is not possible.
The wheels of industry are oiled by paying customers. When the cash stops the wheels stop moving.
That’s what we have now.

When there is a car manufacturer making cars with a million robots, that is ONE producer, not a million.

But if industry evolves to a point, that there are a million producers serving the last remaining 1000 humans, so what?
So much the better if those 1000 humans now have the leisure to enjoy their lives, discourse, study, and play whilst the robots serve their needs.
Dancers at the End of TIme.

11

Simply no work, the idea of full employment in a society is relatively recent, only a few decades, most of the world and people, study anthropology, has lived dirt poor, most people who have ever lived would have been considered “unemployed” for all of their lives by todays’ arbitrary standards and so forth.

The chinese have millions of empty homes in skyscrapers, they just keep on building like drones, so where is the "too few producers " ? All companies and factories and home builders would love to make and build like crazy, as they have done in the past but saturating markets in the end. all of the instability of capitalism is due exactly to this, easily saturated markets with goods, homes cars and all kinds of things by too few workers given the huge efficiency and productivity gains a technological economy provides and so forth.

Of course economy is just a cycle of booms and busts and instabilities, economy is not a science, just an arbitrary beahavior set a civilization gives itself, and the economy will always change and surprise you: just when housing goes bust and prices go down, there will be another boom and priceds going up again and so forth.

The stupid moralistic “work makes you richer” no longer operates for the most part, hard work for the most part is senseless and so forth. Of course some will get rich by working hard, but the system has nothing to do with hard work and merit and all to due with politics, power struggles, arbitrary decisions, networks, energy and so forth.

12

It’s that bad.
Capitalism creates poverty. Not only does it rely on it; it thrives on it.
It is stimulated by the tension between wealth and poverty.

13

Poor decisions aren’t the only reason that people are poor.

That’s the bogus premise behind this whole line.

Just sayin man.

14

Poor decisions aren’t the only reason that people are poor.

That’s the bogus premise behind this whole line.

Just sayin man.

Why focus on the needy?

You said it yourself that investors are ruining the economy.

Just think if we stopped the practice of allowing companies like google to hide half their revenue tax free in Bermuda.

We wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

They used the business environment here to benefit themselves, and when it was time to pay their taxes and contribute back to what they took from, they decided to only pay half, and we let them.

I’d rather make google pay their taxes than make a poor person give up some of their food, but that’s just me.

15 
 That's absolutely right!  It's is no coincidence that the rate of inflation  tries to mimick the percentage interest banks pay on deposits. (Or, vica versa)  It seems to be built in, but in fact it is an effect of it. However it seems as if the unemployed are paying for the dividend banks pay on deposits.  If this seems far fetched, the fact that the figures are not based on a linear ratio, but on a bell curve softens this claim.  In moderate 4% unemployment, the interest paid is very close to the level of unemployment.  If there is an appreciabke digression, the bell curve inverts the ratio,  caused by an artificial economic intrusion:  the Federal Reserve increasing  the money supply,  depressing  the interest rate to enhance the economy.
16

Ade, your wishing for the death of a select group of people is not only morally disgusting (which I’m not that bothered about), but based on ignorance (which I am bothered about).

Concerning those on welfare, I have 2 interlinked points to make:
(1) If you have come across “The Phillips Curve”, you will know that inflation has historically been at its highest and least controllable when employment is particularly high.
(2) Unemployment founds a significant aspect of worker motivation in a Capitalist economy - it serves as a relatively unpleasant and disgraceful status for people to have, which deters people from leaving their productive job, and the pool of the unemployed always serves as a threat that you are replaceable if you don’t constantly prove your working worth. This is tied into (1), keeping workers from demanding too much in the way of wages, for fear that the unemployed will accept a lower wage for the same work because it’s better than no wage. This tames the inflationary battle between employers wanting to pay employees less so that they can make more profit, and employees wanting their pay to justify their hard work.

Of course, this all amounts to the unemployed actually providing a service to society! They ought to be paid!

(In line with (2), this also helps maintain a minimum standard of living for workers who would otherwise fear unemployment much more and accept even less than the paltry sum that passes for minimum wage these days).

Additionally, the money given to those on welfare gets spent.
It goes back into the system that pays the wages of “the productive”. It just takes a detour and keeps people alive along the way, despite their economic status. It does not build up around the unemployed, nor does it do anything to detract from the economy when it goes straight back into it - if anything, it facilitates trade by expanding the customer base to include those on welfare.

A Capitalist economy with everyone “producing” would destabilise and collapse very quickly. Wishful thinking, contrary to the human drive to survive, won’t do anything to stop this either.

I don’t think people even consider anymore, that “more production” might not always be better.
If things don’t need doing (and SO MUCH that is done in any developed society isn’t just unneeded, but detrimental) then they shouldn’t be done. But our economy is structured such that we have to be doing “something”, almost regardless of what that thing is (as long as it is perceivable as having the vaguest of merit to it). The continuous increments of extra service offered by companies spirals toward the ridiculous, at the significant expense of workers and with negligible benefit to the consumer. A smarter management of a society would not indulge in such pointlessness, and conserve its human and non-human resources to allow a better life for all.

17

There’s too many consumers AND producers, our society conduces and prosumes nothing but crap.

18

My point exactly:

19

Can’t disagree with this.

20

I think we should kill producers/consumers and leave only those who produce/consume little alive. If you have nothing good to produce, don’t produce it, productivity for its own sake strikes me as monstrously stupid. Goods should serve people, not the other way 'round. capisci? GDP has little to do with eudaimonia. If you take better care of your car than yourself than there’s something wrong with you. I know fuckres who won’t fuel their car with cheap gas but run themselves on cheap coffee, food and wine to “save a penny”. Idolaters, misers and materialists… they’re a dime a dozen. You don’t have to believe in the supernatural to be guilty of idolatry, necessarily.