Unemployment in a magical world [closed]

Question

Once upon a time, a world parallel to ours inhabited by magical creatures alongside human beings. But these aren't ordinary humans, they have magic. Everyone does, from the humblest farmer to the imposing king. Their kingdom is still new, they discovered the dimension a few decades ago and soon afterwards they establish the monarchy. But currently a crisis afflicts the kingdom, many people are losing their jobs as their bosses replaced them with golems, familiars and telekinesis. The king needs to fix this, but the question remains: how to avoid unemployment in a magical world?

About magic: It is not possible to create things from nothing. Gold coins are enchanted using a type of magic that only the king can do. Spells are divided into three: commoners, nobles and royalty. The spells are passed from mother to son (because if it's a father and one of them has children with several women, capable of royal magic not being so rare for a long time), then only a royal could forge coins (if they learn the right spell the king uses, if not, he makes coin for coin himself), so even if someone turns something into gold coins, only the king's direct magic would make them official, otherwise they're just discs made of beautiful metal( and gold itself is worthless because anyone who studies it can transmute it). The nobles' magic is good for combat (attack, defend, strengthen, etc.) taking into account that the nobles of the medieval era were often soldiers, so this duty is also passed on to the nobles of this world. The commoners' magic is good for taking care... taking care of the house, taking care of the plants, taking care of the animals, taking care of health, entertaining people, etc. Despite the natural predispositions of spells, it is not impossible for a commoner to learn to use combat magic and a noble to use healing magic. or plant, for example, although both take twice as much effort to do this. Royal family magic is good at everything.

Note: You cannot use spells that involve interfering with people's free will, such as mind control or a spell that blocks some of their magic. That would be a bit totalitarian/authoritarian in my view. If it's to use magic, it doesn't involve controlling people. There are no races other than humans, so there is only one society.

Answer 1

Make work for them.

You can just make up jobs for them. Have a bureaucracy, make a police force, make social workers, make artists, lots of things. If you have the spare cash, you can afford to spend it on things not directly relevant for survival.

You can hold regular festivals and religious ceremonies for morale boosting, and hire lots of people for each one.

This has the disadvantage that it involves a conflict with the rich for access to resources, but the advantage that it should make people happy.

Do a grand project

If everyone has magic, everyone is a resource. You can have one or several grand projects where you experiment with magic to do see what more expansive things you can do.

This has the advantage of you getting more powerful magic, but the disadvantage that you may automate away even more jobs.

Cut people out of the workforce.

Can men or women be persuaded that their gender roles say they should take care of the kids? Can religious people be convinced to live in monasteries praying to gods? Can disabled people be convinced to become story tellers and wisdom spreaders?

This will cut down the number of people seeking jobs, and make a more solid society with more people helping out others.

Colonize new dimensions or lands

You can conquer or colonize places. This means you can send away people, especially people who complain about unemployment, and have them make you a new kingdom.

This does carry the risk they'll rebel and conquer you back.

Ban or tax fields of magic

If golems are putting people out of jobs, ban them, or tax them. This can reduce how common they are, and it can give you a powerful faction who are the only ones who can use them who will work to enforce their monopoly.

Eliminate surplus populations

An unethical option, but one popular in history. A war or a plague can help end a lot of lives, and increase the need for people, and managing that can help make more jobs.

Answer 2

Why do they need jobs?

Do they not have magic? Can they not just supply themselves with food, clothing, and shelter? Build their own golems and conjure their own familiars to act as their servants?

Answer 3

From the beginnings of human civilization up until about 1800, roughly 90% of all labor was devoted to producing food.

By 1900, that had dropped to 50%, and by 2000, it was a mere 10%—yet we produce so much excess food now that even the poor are often obese.

In our world, the direct cause was the Industrial Revolution. In yours, it was the Magical Revolution. The practical effects are the same.

Rather than worrying about 80% of workers being unemployed, as many did a century or two ago here, imagine all the wondrous new things and industries and jobs that will be created by and for your people now that they have been freed from the bondage of perpetual starvation.

Answer 4

First of all, who's unemployed?

This depends on the kind of creatures that exist in your world. Specifically, it depends on what these creatures are better at than the humans living in the unemployment-ridden kingdom.

Labourers:

You've already established that there are golems in the world, that are (presumably) stronger and more endurable than humans, and therefore they outcompete humans in the manual labour section. So, laborers will have higher rates of unemployment.

Scholars:

Are there creatures smarter than humans? If so, how much smarter? Do these creatures have societies of their own? These three questions are essential in finding out whether scholars, and the like, will be unemployed. I find it hard to believe creatures vastly smarter than humans would bother to be employed as scholars for humans, if they have their own society. In this event, they'd either ignore humans, sell knowledge to them or be hostile towards them. However, why the heck would they bother to work for humans, trying to help them solve questions they're forefathers figured out long ago?

If they don't have their own societies, then they might want to work for humans in order to have a place to stay, and maybe, something to do. However, why wouldn't they have their own society? I can think of two reasons:

(1) They're nearly extinct, and thus their past societies are gone, and they're too few to form new ones.

(2) They're anti- or asocial creatures, and thus never formed societies.

In the first case, then they wouldn't affect the unemployment rates of scholars that much, since there's less of them to outcompete humans. In the second case, they'd probably not want to work for humans. However, from an evolutionary standpoint, it's unlikely they'd become so smart if they're inherently anti- or asocial.

What if they're forced into working for humans, through magical or other means? Well, given their intelligence, I think they'd probably be able to remain outside of the captive of comparably dumb humans. However, let's say they don't possess magical abilities; then, humans may be able to hold them captive and work for them.

Another possibility is that these creatures aren't that smart, meaning they're smart enough to enslave for scholarly work, but not smart enough to evade/escape this enslavement. However, I'd say this too would require them to be without a society. If there was a society of these smart creatures (one probably more advanced than human societies), then they'd probably not allow humans to enslave their kind.

So, this leaves us with three cases for when it makes sense that scholars would be experiencing heightened rates of unemployment:

(1) There are smart creatures that for some reason are willing to work as scholars for humans.

(2) There are creatures smarter than humans, but not smart enough to evade/escape their enslavement.

(3) There are smart creatures that don't posess magical powers, being magically enslaved by humans and forced to do scholarly work.

Cases (1) and (2) probably require the creatures to be without a society. Case (3) would require the government to allow for the enslavement of conscious beings. Not sure if the "no authoriatarian/totalitarian" clause is a product of plot necessity or a product of the government being somewhat similar to modern morals, but if the latter, it is unlikely that the enslavement of such beings would be okay. In that case, it would have to be an illegal, hidden practice, which would be hard to pull off given that the scholars would often need to do observational work out in the world. In this case, due to the decreased utility of illegal enslavement, that's additionally hard to hide due to the nature of the work, these creatures' effect on unemployment rates would be lower.

Servants:

Basically, servers, babysitters, etc. People in non-scholarly lines of work that aren't primarily characterized by manual labour. Golems would not outcompete these people, as you wouldn't have a hulking golem serving your wine, would you? Furthermore, any creatures that look scary, would not be favorable for jobs involving social interactions. So, if there are any employable/enslavable creatures in your world that conform to these restrictions, and if they're better at the job than humans, and/or are cheaper to employ/enslave, then this would leave more humans unemployed.

So, how to alleviate or stop the unemployment?

Let's look at the solutions case by case. I'm assuming the perspective of the king here.

Labourers:

Invest in tools, making them better, but also harder to use for non-humans. If golems are dumber than humans, then making more complex tools could achieve this. Otherwise, I think golems are probably not the most dexterous creatures, so creating tools requiring high dexterity would also achieve this. However, doing this successfully would make unemployment rates heighten for golems. I assume the king is concerned with the unemployment of humans.

Scholars:

A solution possible if these smart creatures are an endangered species; commit genocide, driving them into extinction, or driving them away. Other ways to drive them away would be to install and cultivate systemic and cultural discrimination of, and racism towards, the smart creatures, making their lives within human civilization terrible. Given that their superior intelligence might make a lot of humans envious and make them hard to understand for a lot of humans, causing further resentment and lots of conflicts due to misunderstandings, as well as a lower empathy due to diminished social interaction, I think this kind of racism might just evolve on its own.

However, what if these creatures are enslaved and not extinct? Then they don't have the ability to leave the human societies, and extinction via genocide isn't realistic. In the event that this enslavement is illegal, the king could just allocate a lot of resources to apprehending the slavers and freeing the slaves. Given how smart these creatures are, this task could probably be benefitted a lot by asking the freed slaves to help, which they'd likely want to do (unless they're anti- or asocial). Then, after having freed them all, the king kindly tells them they cannot stay in his kingdom (given that he wants to alleviate the unemployment rates), or, he could find something else for them to do.

Given that in this case, the smart creatures aren't extinct, they probably have societies (given they're not anti- or asocial, as said). So, the king could also gain resources and help from those societies as well.

Servants:

Here, the same kind of solutions as mentioned above could apply. Genocide, the cultivation of discrimination and racism of/against the creatures, or stopping the enslavement of the creatures.

Solution that applies to all three occupational groups

The king could allocate lots of resources to the education and training of humans, so as to make them as good, or better, than their non-human competitors.

The king could also pass various laws and taxes that makes practices leaving humans unemployed harder or impossible to maintain.

Notes:

I want to say that in the case of human scholars being outcompeted by smarter non-humans, I think the benefits would be greater than the downsides. If they're really smart, their contributions would propel the kingdom's science and technology far ahead, which would in turn create new jobs and new areas of study, thus alleviating the unemployment. Also, the advances in tech and science may just solve the problems of unemployment, making it a non-issue in the first place.

Furthermore, I'm not sure that these smarter creatures would even cause a lot of unemployment in scholars. In a kingdom, I'd think a lot of scholarly work is done independently, by more wealthy individuals, or as service to the king/church. The latter means that the king can limit the unemployment of humans by not hiring the non-humans for studies funded by the crown. If the church is under the king's control, this applies to that as well.

As for the former, just because a few smart non-humans are publishing more interesting, better, and more relevant work, doesn't mean that these self-employed, human scholars still won't make a living. There's countless of things that need to be studied, and if these creatures are an endangered species, they can't cover it all. Furthermore, if they're so smart, they're likely to be more occupied with harder topics and questions, leaving lots of less complex stuff for humans to study and publish on. That less complex stuff will also be more digestible to humans, meaning it may have a greater appeal as well.

Answer 5

How to avoid unemployment in a magical world?

Why avoid it? If everyone has magic enough to meet their needs and desires, no one need work. If you can conjure your own clothing, shelter, food, water, tools, entertainment, etc, what need do you have for employment, or an economy? I don't see a problem with this.

But if you want to mess with this people's paradise, then either (1) you need to invent more extravagant needs and desires for your people which magic alone cannot accomplish, or (2) the magic of your world must be made limited in some way.

(1) In the first case, your humans -- even though they are all humans -- can belong to different tribes, cultures, traditions, religions, political structures (for example, democracy, not just monarchy) and societies. And some of these might not all agree on the rules for how magic should be used. (Conflict!)

For instance, some might take special delight in the creation of works and arts with their own hands, without the cheat of using magic. Or, conversely, they may revel in the design of particularly elaborate magic that is not easy to reproduce by unskilled users.

On the other hand, since magic makes everything too easy, some evil people may find that the only way to alleviate their boredom is the subjugation or torture of others. You might need to hire an army to defend against such people...

(2) You already have some limitations in how magic coinage cannot be forged, and how spells are passed down through families. But you can also make it so your world's magic requires some kind of physical, expendable, non-transmutable ingredient. If this ingredient is limited, and requires harvesting or mining or some amount of 'work' to acquire it, then there will always be more demand than there is supply. People won't be able to use unlimited magic. They will have to work for this ingredient.

In conclusion

If magic is unlimited, and seen as preferable to non-magic, then all other resources are worthless, because magic can conjure and do everything. If magic is limited in some way, then non-magical resources (gold, wheat, labour) suddenly regain at least some of their value, because you can always make use of the real resource if magic is not available or not preferred.

Answer 6

In general? There should not be unemployment in a "Magical World(tm)"

In the world that this website exists in, unemployment is a consequence of having the choice to be unemployed. There is never "zero jobs", just jobs that people do not want to do. If land was free, everyone would revert to farming if they had no other skill, because that's how it was up until the 1940's.

In a Magical World, the same is true. People will simply refuse jobs that they feel are beneath them, uninteresting, or unsafe. Presumably you would create "soul-less" golems to do all the jobs that are demeaning and unsafe. This means that people are free to entertain themselves if they have no pressing need to make money.

This answer presumes for the sake of argument that a Golem is "not a living being" and "not an intelligent being", more akin to a toaster than a smartphone. It does only one thing, and does it well. Perhaps a familiar with intelligence might find it demeaning to do things, but comply because they will be denied existence otherwise.

As long as the "Magical World(tm)" does not hit a population boom where more people come into existence than the rate of renewable resources are depleted, there will always be some kind of job that people can do making or refining materials, producing consumables, or recycling unwanted materials. People are good at determining what is "good to eat" and "creative", where as "programmed" golems can only make/use the things they know about, the way they were programmed, and nothing else, not even more efficient ways.

If people reproduce at a rate fast enough to exhaust resources, then there will be conflicts over remaining resources (such as food) and that may very well result in golems being targeted for their resources, or stolen outright. On the flip side of that, if populations are crashing, then there will be a demand on artificial labor such as golems to maintain an economic output.

So the answer you probably want is "exploration" and "big projects"

Surely every square inch of the world has not been explored? What about underwater, or even attempting to leave the world for another star?

Have the Kingdom build large projects. If neighbors are far away, or maybe do not exist, have them expand outwards, downwards, or upwards. Maybe there are other civilizations out there. If there are neighbors, then you have potential trade or conflicts if one Kingdom has what another does not.

Ultimately, it's a very open-ended question with no one-correct-answer. The more different the world is, the more challenging it will be to have a familiar analog to the world this website exists in.

Blue-collar workers would likely go into business for themselves producing higher-quality products and services than "golem" technology on commission. White-collar workers would on the other hand likely switch from office-work to creative work (writing, painting, etc.)

The thing missing from the question is scarcity. If it's very expensive to do anything, then the population would naturally decline, as people will not want to have children when they need their money for themselves. If it's very cheap (or free, as in socialized services) then there is no backstop to population growth except food and space, and you may have more unemployed people just doing nothing but reproducing, contributing nothing to the economy.

Answer 7

Do nothing

Golems are their version of robots.

Your society needs to go through an Industrial Revolution and learn Mass Production techniques.