Investment and employment into the future.

ludjob

Hello out there,

It is good to learn Pfizer will invest €100m upgrading some of their plants in Ireland. It is interesting and informative however to look at the employment profile planned for the investment. 200 construction jobs will be created for possibly 2 years? Two decades ago such construction might have needed 2,000 jobs for 5 years but then building methods have greatly improved. There is no mention whatsoever of any additional jobs in production when the plant is completed despite predicted output in excess of double what is possible today.

This is the reality of the 21st Century. To have any hope of survival Multinationals such as Pfizer must construct plants which greatly increase output and reduce labour. Yet Governments and Economists appear locked in a crazy make-believe world that employment can be created in the same manner as centuries past. The simple reality is organisations such as Pfizer don't need nearly as much work to create many multiples of what they once did even just decades ago. Automation and Smart Assembly produce everything necessary in great abundance with less and less labour in the modern world and will get better Technology improves.

When Pfizer's new facility becomes operational, plants producing similar products elsewhere in the world will be forced out of business. Pfizer will continue to automate and shed jobs until, possible within a decade, a much more modern and automated plant producing much improved products will force Pfizer out of business. It is how unregulated productive power progresses; dog eat dog in a mad efficiency race with scant regard for millions being displaced from employment and cast on the scrapheap of dependency and despair.

Technology will not stop; that is why world regulation and management with production restriction to a sensible excess margin above what is needed and can be consumed is essential. In the meantime employment lost in private enterprise must be compensated for by increased Public Service jobs. Industry does not need employment; Government must provide it creating many more jobs from a much reduced pool of work. Otherwise unemployment spirals out of control. Entirely new and challenging Economic Concepts for an entirely new Economic Age.

Despite gross over prescription the drug market is finite and can be greatly oversupplied. The same applies to practically every type of product and service. As automation reduces employment Administrations must devise different policies for distribution of the vast wealth Automated Commerce can provide. Since employment is the only dignified method of such distribution new ways of job creation must be found. More jobs from less work; shorter hours, longer holidays and earlier retirement. Otherwise society itself will crumble like the old laws of Economic Philosophy already have.

oscarBravo

ludjob wrote: »

It is how unregulated productive power progresses; dog eat dog in a mad efficiency race with scant regard for millions being displaced from employment and cast on the scrapheap of dependency and despair.

Isn't that basically just the Luddite fallacy?

ludjob

oscarBravo wrote: »

Isn't that basically just the Luddite fallacy?

The luddites got it right. Just 200 years too soon. Modern Technology has vindicated them

oscarBravo

What has suddenly changed, 200 years later?

ludjob

oscarBravo wrote: »

What has suddenly changed, 200 years later?

Computerisation. Technology has taken us to a new place in economics where we can produce everything in abundance except work. We embrace and enjoy this wonderful world or it will destroy us.

KyussBishop

The argument rests on the assumption that there is nothing else useful for the newly unemployed workers to do - this is never true.

Until 'the singularity' (basically, AI replacing human labour altogether), there will always be more work for people to do.

Economic crisis which cause large private debt loads, thus reducing aggregate demand, will however cause the private sector to be incapable of employing all workers from time to time - that is indeed a case where government can step in for providing employment (but only temporarily, until the private sector recovers).

It's quite possible to maintain full employment 100% of the time (any economic system not doing this, is by-definition inefficient, since economics is all about efficient allocation of resources i.e. labour), but there are quite a lot of ideological disagreements about this (which tend to be entirely about politics, not economics).

Jonny7

KyussBishop wrote: »

It's quite possible to maintain full employment 100% of the time

It's impossible.

KyussBishop

Jonny7 wrote: »

It's impossible.

That is an unbacked assertion. I've posted repeatedly and at length on this forum, detailing how unemployed workers can be soaked up into temporary employment programs, when private industry does not want them. You need to present an argument to back your view, not just assert it.

Again, economics is all about efficient allocation of resources, and workers/labour are the most important resource in the economy. If you are failing to put all of those workers into employment, you are (by definition almost, when it comes to economics) 'doing it wrong'.

ludjob

Since the dawn of history the primary purpose of jobs (employment) was to perform work; produce a result (wealth) by, in most instances, the only means possible. A secondary role of jobs was to distribute portion of the wealth as wages. In the 21st Century the primary purpose is to a large degree eliminated; labour is not needed or wanted to perform the work; i.e create wealth anymore. Certainly not in anything like the quantity required heretofore. The secondary purpose of employment is however more important than ever; the possibility of independent self sufficiency is becoming very remote. Employment, or rather income, is essential to give the mass of population dignified access to a share of wealth; if sufficient are not given such access, social cohesion could, correction, will crumble.

How is such employment created? By having and paying more people do less work; i.e.share the diminishing pool of work as widely as possible. The greatest obstacle to doing so is an historic mind-set concerning work; work is noble; earn ones' bread by sweat of ones' brow; work or die; work will make you free, etc., etc. were all valid and worthwhile slogans of past very different times but are largely obsolete in the modern Technological age. Great propaganda to keep noses to grindstones when there was no other way of grinding but utterly absurd when Technology does the grinding much better and faster than humans ever could and practically everything else as well.

Like it or loath it, the human race is destined for much more leisure; work is simply not needed and not available. Unlike the Luddites though, rather than try to destroy it, we must embrace the technology, adapt obsolete Economic thinking to accommodate it and enjoy the much improved lifestyle it gives us. There really is little choice; Technology will not go away or be un-invented. Anyway; what the hell is wrong with a world where everything is available in abundance and we don't have to work so hard anymore.

oscarBravo

ludjob wrote: »

Computerisation. Technology has taken us to a new place in economics where we can produce everything in abundance except work. We embrace and enjoy this wonderful world or it will destroy us.

And a Luddite would have said: "Industrialisation. Machinery has taken us to a new place in economics where we can produce everything in abundance except work. We embrace and enjoy this wonderful world or it will destroy us."

You seem to tacitly accept that they were wrong, but it's precisely the same argument. There are something like seven times as many people employed in the world today as there were when the Luddites predicted that industrialisation would lead to everyone being unemployed.

Sorry, but I remain unconvinced.

KyussBishop

Failure to think of more work to be done, is just a failure of imagination. There is no limit to the amount of scientific research to be done, technology to be developed, infrastructure to be improved, etc. etc..

You can go down the road of having people do less work if you want, and move towards more of a 'leisure economy' - that's fine, and is perfectly manageable (desirable even) - but there will still never be a lack of useful work to do, until we hit 'the singularity' where AI takes over human labour (both physical and intellectual) entirely - that's an incredibly long way away.

ludjob

oscarBravo wrote: »

And a Luddite would have said: "Industrialisation. Machinery has taken us to a new place in economics where we can produce everything in abundance except work. We embrace and enjoy this wonderful world or it will destroy us."

You seem to tacitly accept that they were wrong, but it's precisely the same argument. There are something like seven times as many people employed in the world today as there were when the Luddites predicted that industrialisation would lead to everyone being unemployed.

Sorry, but I remain unconvinced.

Reply;
I suggest the Luddites were wrong to reject and attempt to destroy technology, crude and all as it was in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. Their predictions were relatively correct however although it has taken 200 years to validate their thinking.

Why has it taken until now to validate the Luddite view? Because Technology facilitated such Growth or increase through the ages of supply, of affluence, of population, of improved lifestyle and increased demand, it always created more jobs than it eliminated. Or it did so until now! Until the computer came along. The marriage of mechanical Technology and computerisation has taken the whole production and jobs scenario onto a different plane altogether. Levels of Productive Capability has utterly outstripped consumption demands. In other words where until relatively recently the Economic difficulty was to produce all we could consume; the 21st century difficulty is to consume all we can produce. Whereas the historic problem was to "grow" production (increase output) to satisfy what was appeared insatiable demand, future problems will be to restrain production to prevent gross over supply.

This reversal of situations has been achieved by eliminating the restriction human labour placed on production. Welcome news if the now redundant jobs that were once absolutely necessary to produce anything and everything were not also needed to sustain cohesive society by providing access to income for the masses.

Technology changed the fundementals of Economic Activity as this century began. Old Economic Dogma of grow, grow, grow will no longer suffice; how can increase of production be sustained when you are already producing too much. New thinking is desprately needed to accommodate the awesome power of modern Technology in a world where growth and work are greatly diminished. Discussions such as these we participate in might encourage debate that will bring solutions to possibly the greatest difficulty Economics and Society ever faced. The great problem is to recognise, embrace and adapt to phenomenal Success. Because Technological Success rather than fiscal Failure is the root cause of our present difficulties.

KyussBishop

If the economy is more than adequately supplying peoples demands (or capable of it), that doesn't mean an end to new jobs, it just means different jobs.

There is never going to be an end to the amount of scientific research, technological development, or infrastructural upgrades (spurred by technological development) that need to be done. Never.

That fact alone, blows away your argument completely.


You don't need endless economic growth and endless increasing demand (it's physically impossible anyway), that is just perpetuated, because our current economic system is built upon debt-based money (banks create money by extending loans, meaning for every Euro created, an equal amount of debt is also created - which expands beyond the money supply due to interest), which mandatorily requires growth in order to pay off interest. It's perfectly manageable to switchover to a steady-state economy.

Economists like Herman Daly have pretty much figured all of this out already - the economic system he supports goes well beyond just fixing the economic crisis, but also sets in place the framework needed to gradually reallocate resources away from fossil fuels, to prevent climate change and to settle into a steady-state economy eventually.

This is a set of problems that (like the economic crisis) already have perfectly good solutions available, that benefit everybody, and are just blocked by ideology and politics.

nesf

KyussBishop wrote: »

That is an unbacked assertion. I've posted repeatedly and at length on this forum, detailing how unemployed workers can be soaked up into temporary employment programs, when private industry does not want them. You need to present an argument to back your view, not just assert it.

Again, economics is all about efficient allocation of resources, and workers/labour are the most important resource in the economy. If you are failing to put all of those workers into employment, you are (by definition almost, when it comes to economics) 'doing it wrong'.

It's impossible for the very simple reason that if you eliminate long term unemployment you are still left with some level of frictional unemployment. There will always be around 1% of the labour force between jobs for a few weeks or months even in the boom times over the year. This isn't a problem economically, they're unemployed for so little time that their skills don't degrade etc. You can't push these people into temporary work that fast either, you're talking about a couple of weeks before you'll find suitable work for them to do unless you're planning on having everyone who leaves work to start digging and filling holes in the ground the next day. This would remove frictional employment but, eh, it'd work out more of a drain on the economy than just giving the the dole whilst they job hunt.

sparksfly

Its not just direct employment that these multinationals bring but a whole raft of indirect employment. Pfizer will now purchase increased quantities of raw materials (a lot of it made in Irish primary manufacturing and API plants), consumables, cleaning services, specialist services like automation, utility servicing and calibration. Even local taxi services and hotels will see an increase in demand.

Apart from that they will most likely pay higher rates and local service charges.

KyussBishop

nesf wrote: »

It's impossible for the very simple reason that if you eliminate long term unemployment you are still left with some level of frictional unemployment. There will always be around 1% of the labour force between jobs for a few weeks or months even in the boom times over the year. This isn't a problem economically, they're unemployed for so little time that their skills don't degrade etc. You can't push these people into temporary work that fast either, you're talking about a couple of weeks before you'll find suitable work for them to do unless you're planning on having everyone who leaves work to start digging and filling holes in the ground the next day. This would remove frictional employment but, eh, it'd work out more of a drain on the economy than just giving the the dole whilst they job hunt.

That's true, but frictional unemployment isn't really something I count against 'full employment' though - certainly there will be some of this, and it's not a problem that really needs solving in my view.

At most, I'd consider it (after implementing an 'employer of last resort' position for government) a totally separate problem, which is more of a moderately-sized efficiency issue than anything else (which pales in comparison to the gross inefficiency of current unemployment levels).

nesf

KyussBishop wrote: »

That's true, but frictional unemployment isn't really something I count against 'full employment' though - certainly there will be some of this, and it's not a problem that really needs solving in my view.

At most, I'd consider it (after implementing an 'employer of last resort' position for government) a totally separate problem, which is more of a moderately-sized efficiency issue than anything else (which pales in comparison to the gross inefficiency of current unemployment levels).

Most economists consider 3-4% unemployment as full employment. You'll always have some long term dole people and some people in between jobs no matter how healthy the job market is.

KyussBishop

Ya but the government position as 'employer of last resort' ensures anyone who wants a job, can have one - it is argued by many heterodox economists, that the private sector in modern economies never really fully satisfied the demand for jobs as well, so the 3-4% as 'full employment' level, should probably be closer to 1-2% as the 'real' (excluding job churn and indolence) full employment rate.

Jonny7

KyussBishop wrote: »

That is an unbacked assertion.

It's not an assertion, it's a fact. 100% employment is not possible

There is however economic "full employment" with the unemployment rate at 3% or 4%.

KyussBishop

Jonny7 wrote: »

It's not an assertion, it's a fact. 100% employment is not possible

There is however economic "full employment" with the unemployment rate at 3% or 4%.

I never claimed 100% employment, I claimed full employment 100% of the time, and you have even provided a standard definition of full employment which completely backs my claim, which highlights that the issue you take with what I've said is purely semantic (where you get the definition wrong, and bizzarely end up pointing that out in your own post).

You didn't even read the post right before your own, where I've already explained this.

It is purely a case of nitpicking, seeing as I've already clarified it multiple times, and where the economic definition (what other definition would I use, when talking about economics?) perfectly fits what I'm saying.

Jonny7

KyussBishop wrote: »

I never claimed 100% employment, I claimed full employment 100% of the time, and you have even provided a standard definition of full employment which completely backs my claim, which highlights that the issue you take with what I've said is purely semantic (where you get the definition wrong, and bizzarely end up pointing that out in your own post).

You didn't even read the post right before your own, where I've already explained this.

It is purely a case of nitpicking, seeing as I've already clarified it multiple times, and where the economic definition (what other definition would I use, when talking about economics?) perfectly fits what I'm saying.

You're right, didn't read it all, apologies.

Hypothetical economics is another pet peeve of mine

micosoft

If any of you are at all serious about the discussion around labour and technology I would suggest reading Harry Bravermans "Labour and Monopoly Capital - The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century". It's a very interesting book that takes a more sophisticated view on the luddite cause.

Personally I think the issue is not so much unemployment (services jobs will make up for de-industrialisation) but the growing gap between low and high earners in a given society, not driven by inequality but talent (a Atlas Shrugged Dystopia). That said, that's what the tax system is for...

KyussBishop

The problem with that, is that just because someone is a high-earner, it doesn't mean they are talented - it should be that way, but it is not in todays economy (the finance/banking industry in particular is a good example, with ridiculous salaries/bonuses/pensions being dished out, in reward for the socially beneficial role of partially destroying the world economy).

It's a matter of incentives, and what we consider socially beneficial, and socially harmful. A lot of profit-seeking is harmful to society, such as that based on debt bubbles, that based on 'rent-seeking' from others in the economy, and similar negative things.
There are also a whole swathe of unprofitable yet socially beneficial things, which do not earn well - taking care of the sick/elderly, voluntary work helping local communities and such, among other things.

Money isn't actually a problem, just the distribution of it - the problem is deciding what kind of work we want people doing in society, and what is beneficial to society - what should be incentivized, and disincentivized.

The problem with the Randian stuff, is it lionizes 'talent', 'job creators' and the wealthy in general, as if they are innately special somehow, while ignoring in reality the existence of (massive, astronomical) fraud, rent-seeking, and destructive sociopathic forms of profit-seeking activities in general (which end up harming other people and the environment they live in) - methods by which many of the 'high earners' and wealthy today, become rich (certainly not all of course; I would want to see more high-earners/wealthy, but getting there as reward for socially beneficial work).

Anyone can be a talented and valuable contributor to society, given the right opportunities, and they should be given the right incentives/rewards for that (which is in many ways, not the case today).

Valmont

KyussBishop wrote: »

Money isn't actually a problem, just the distribution of it - the problem is deciding what kind of work we want people doing in society, and what is beneficial to society - what should be incentivized, and disincentivized.

It's ironic arguing how best to cut up the pie when your solution involves destroying the oven. When you say 'we' you mean the government because 'we' as in every single one us cannot conceivably decide with unanimity on what 'work people should be doing'. Your only option here is to have a totalitarian government telling everyone else what 'we' aka 'you' should be doing.

Freedom has no place in your vision of society, KyussBishop, only power.

KyussBishop

Valmont wrote: »

It's ironic arguing how best to cut up the pie when your solution involves destroying the oven. When you say 'we' you mean the government because 'we' as in every single one us cannot conceivably decide with unanimity on what 'work people should be doing'. Your only option here is to have a totalitarian government telling everyone else what 'we' aka 'you' should be doing.

Freedom has no place in your vision of society, KyussBishop, only power.

Assertions and straw-men; what I've advocated isn't anything like that.

The problem is simple: The private sector does not want these unemployed workers, and nothing you or I do is going to immediately fix that in the present, it will take years.

You want to tell these workers to sit on their ass, instead of offering them some temporary work in a temporary, public jobs program, when that program is perfectly achievable (for a country or region with control over its own currency) without any unmanageable negative effects - it in fact prevents the total waste of labour power/potential that your policies advocate, which holds economic output way below full potential, and permanently irrecoverably wastes it.


Your motivations against this policy aren't based anywhere in logic, only in reflexive anti-government ideology, which blinds you to instances where sometimes government is helpful.

I mean even most Libertarians depend on government within their ideology, so just start looking at the harm vs cost of policies on their own merit, and stop exaggerating the negatives (in ways you know are nonsense) just because 'government' is required to enact them.

That just blinds you to perfectly good solutions to the crisis, which are far less oppressive than the situation private financiers have put us (and are holding us) in at the moment, with massive amounts of public/private debt (caused by the bubble they created, blew up, and have been profiting from both before and after the crisis began), and successfully scaremongering us away from the solutions.

I don't know if you're aware of it, but your own ideology is all about power - putting power in private hands by giving private business/banking/finance interests enormous economic and thus political control, and taking power out of democratic control. That's the logical conclusion of the policies you support, and the ideology is built on mounds of obfuscatory pseudo-intellectualism, to try and deny that and shield it from peoples view (I'll give it credit though - coming across such deceptive ideology, gave me plenty of motivation to properly educate myself on economics, to debunk it).

KyussBishop

Here is a good article related to the original topic, which delves into exactly the kind of labour force changes the OP talks about:
http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/the_wastefulness_of_automation

Makes many good points over productive/counterproductive ways to tackle the issue - though would be interesting to see a good job-guarantee take considered in the article also, it doesn't cover that.

Valmont

KyussBishop wrote: »

The problem is simple: The private sector does not want these unemployed workers, and nothing you or I do is going to immediately fix that in the present, it will take years.

The private sector does not want many of them at the price set by the government. Abolishing the minimum wage would solve the unemployment problem for many people within a week.

I'm also surprised that you still completely ignore the role played by governments during the financial crisis. It's like if I asked the government for 50 billion and they gave it to me, bankrupting themselves and their tax-payers, and instead of blaming the government for handing over the cash you would exclusively vilify me for asking and receiving. I don't think I need to point out that your system places the government dangerously beyond reproach: another sure road to your totalitarian system of complete state control over the economy. And I'm sure when even this hallowed ground is reached and is invariably a disaster, it will be Emmanuel Goldstein who gets the blame.

KyussBishop

Valmont wrote: »

The private sector does not want many of them at the price set by the government. Abolishing the minimum wage would solve the unemployment problem for many people within a week.

That is wrong. These countries have no minimum wage:
Country | Unemployment
Austria | 6.7%
Denmark | 7.9%
Finland | 10.8%
Germany | 5.4%
Italy | 12.2%
Norway | 3.5%
Sweden | 8.8%
Switzerland | 3.1%
Iceland | 4.7%

Nothing to indicate countries without minimum wage are free from unemployment; anything you provide to try and make out high-unemployment countries here as 'exceptions', would be special pleading.

The article linked in my previous post, does a good job explaining why the 'internal devaluation' you advocate, doesn't help employment: It kills aggregate demand.

Valmont wrote: »

I'm also surprised that you still completely ignore the role played by governments during the financial crisis. It's like if I asked the government for 50 billion and they gave it to me, bankrupting themselves and their tax-payers, and instead of blaming the government for handing over the cash you would exclusively vilify me for asking and receiving. I don't think I need to point out that your system places the government dangerously beyond reproach: another sure road to your totalitarian system of complete state control over the economy. And I'm sure when even this hallowed ground is reached and is invariably a disaster, it will be Emmanuel Goldstein who gets the blame.

Eh...you know about the Anglo tapes right - these guys were innocently just "asking and receiving" money from government, and are now being unjustly vilified?

The very framing of that in your post, displays your willing and total blindness to private fraud/corruption; that is totally ridiculous.

You also know the 'total state control over economy' stuff is bollocks; we've been down that line of discussion often enough, for you to know it is a total straw man.


I don't need to qualify my critical attitude to government here (since I've shown plenty of this on boards), and your attempt to try and turn this into "but you are blind to government!" type point, in reply to my criticism of you being blind to private corruption, means you are trying to deflect criticism not by refuting it, but by accusing me of the same thing:
That means you implicitly admit to being blind to private corruption.

With that, you give up any pretense of honest or intellectually credible discourse, and show you have no interest at all in anything other than shielding private corruption and profligacy - I view that (and particularly the Libertarian 'financiers/corporations vs society' variant of that) as one of the most irredeemable, intellectually corrupt and shameful ways of pushing views in political debate.

It's one thing to be caught up in these views (without fully realizing the consequences of enacting them), it's another altogether to know the corruption they are aimed at shielding, and to promote it anyway.

ludjob

Not a bad discussion; some pretty good thoughts. It will require a lot more discussion and thinking to get us out of this.

There are two certainties into the future. One; there is capability to produce practically everything (goods and services including I believe renewable energy) in great abundance and an ability to transport or transpose whatever is needed anywhere in the world at relative low cost. Two; there will be a continual reduction of work (human involvement) needed to achieve such abundance.

The implications are immense and will place enormous strains on Democracy. It all comes down to who controls the source of wealth; i.e. the power of production. Old time (up to the end of the 20th century) Economic Philosophy is inadequate to administer such changed Economic Conditions. Growth, around which old Economic Philosophy evolved (constant necessity to increase production), is not sustainable in a world that already can grossly overproduce. Employment, which is needed to sustain society, structured along historical lines, is impossible in a diminishing work situation.

There are two great challenges of Economic Philosophy into the future. One is to agree, plan, control, restrain and justly administer the enormous productive power available in the world. The second is to provide sufficient employment to sustain coherent society. Massive tasks which will strain Democracy to an enormous degree. It is already beginning to creak and fail under the pressure.

This is not a Recession. It is an entirely new Economic Landscape where the old reliables of constant increase of production (growth) and constant dependence on human labour are no more. How do we change? With great difficulty I fear but the first requisite is to recognise the enormity of the transformation that has occurred and to begin to discuss it. That I hope is what we do.

To date Governments and the Economic Establishment refuse to consider the possibility anything has really changed. They appear to believe old remedies will suffice. The only way their policies can work is if we find another Planet nearby with great wealth and inability to produce anything where we can export our constantly growing production and continue to employ the masses in the old-fashioned way. Otherwise we have to change our thinking and our ways and do it fast.

It appears we are far better able to cope with shortage rather than surplus; with work rather than leisure; with failure rather than success.

Valmont

KyussBishop wrote: »

Nothing to indicate countries without minimum wage are free from unemployment

Take a deep breath and read my very short post again very carefully. To paraphrase, I said the problem of unemployment would be alleviated by the abolishment of the minimum wage, not solved. But don't let reading get in the way of your continuing love affair with the ever-present straw man. Just a thought though, to the extent that everyone who disagrees with you is guilty of erecting straw men, maybe the fact is that your long garbled posts of righteous indignation just don't make sense to anyone?

KyussBishop wrote: »

Eh...you know about the Anglo tapes right - these guys were innocently just "asking and receiving" money from government, and are now being unjustly vilified?

I completely acknowledge the fraud and corruption exhibited by Anglo Irish Bank. Unlike you however, I am not blind to the fact that there were two parties to the theft: Anglo and the state, who are more culpable in my opinion, them being the ones who actually handed over taxpayer's money.

If somebody robs your shop with the help of someone on the inside, legs it, leaving the complicit staff member behind: do you pat them on the head and say don't worry about it, we still want you working here? And you say I'm the blind one?

Valmont

ludjob wrote: »

There are two great challenges of Economic Philosophy into the future. One is to agree, plan, control, restrain and justly administer the enormous productive power available in the world.

Attempting such a feat could only end in tyranny. The great challenge, as I see it, is to have plan, controls, and restraints by the many, and not by the few. This involves letting each individual have supreme control and freedom over their own economic lives and not handing it to the totalitarians who wish to micromanage everything for the good of 'society'.