Right, I didn't mean to suggest that the MacLeod "Losers" will drop out of the labor market entirely--just that their participation will shift dramatically.
For a lot of them, for example, they'll see this as their chance to switch from feigning interest in Achievement-based work, to genuinely striving at Explorational work: likely in the form of making (and perhaps trying to sell) artistic works all day, or doing original mathematical/scientific/philosophical research.
I imagine that you'll see a sudden glut of Great American Novels, itch-scratching open-source software, and enough treatise to compare to Venice in the 1600s, but relatively few dishwashers. :)
We might also see a resurgence in Social work: people who can now afford to spend all day doing volunteer work for various causes. I'm unsure as to the impact of this, but it would probably be a minor revolution and solve several "just needs more bodies" welfare problems (like getting everyone immunized for things, or having an appropriate number of daycares/preschools.)
Don't you think that's a much healthier configuration than what we have now? I like the idea of rewarding grunt work more than we presently do. After all, if wages of dishwashers get high enough, we might just have to invent a machine to do it for us, no?
Besides, even Great American Novelists have use for money. They could buy equipment for a roadtrip, buy a nicer computer for writing, buy services that help them focus on more writing (e.g. pay other people to be dishwashers), and so on. In turn, this gives them incentive to work. It's capitalism as usual, it just doesn't fetishize the 40 hour workweek.
EDIT: just saw you added social work to your list. You're beating me at my own game, perhaps I'd better stop preaching to the choir?
In light of this article (and this comment thread), what we're seeing at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5655243, previous reading I've done, and my increasing exasperation at supply-side solutions for economic troubles that don't seem to be particularly on the supply side...
About rewarding grunt work more, that's also the idea on which the work is distributed in the utopian community described in Skinner's Walden Two:
"About four labor credits are required per day, which translates to anywhere from two to six hours of work depending on the number of credits that are awarded per hour for a given job. Unpleasant jobs, like cleaning sewers, are given higher credit values than easy ones. Members are free to choose their jobs each day, except those that require special training, like medicine."
I recommend that book. (I read it when I was a teenager, more than twenty years ago.)
I do not understand your comment. Do you know of any salary whose amount depends on how pleasant/unpleasant the job is? The idea here is that unpleasant jobs, i.e. jobs that most of the people do not want to do, are paid more. I don't think this is the case in our current society.
For a lot of them, for example, they'll see this as their chance to switch from feigning interest in Achievement-based work, to genuinely striving at Explorational work: likely in the form of making (and perhaps trying to sell) artistic works all day, or doing original mathematical/scientific/philosophical research.
I imagine that you'll see a sudden glut of Great American Novels, itch-scratching open-source software, and enough treatise to compare to Venice in the 1600s, but relatively few dishwashers. :)
We might also see a resurgence in Social work: people who can now afford to spend all day doing volunteer work for various causes. I'm unsure as to the impact of this, but it would probably be a minor revolution and solve several "just needs more bodies" welfare problems (like getting everyone immunized for things, or having an appropriate number of daycares/preschools.)