How is a 3D printer replacing the working class?

Because the upper class will be so busy printing action figures they'll have no time to pay people to work for them; duh.

Regarding the wealth distribution, consider a system of initially identical actors who are between themselves playing a betting game on coin flips, every time betting some set % of their 'money' vs someone with comparable amount of money ; those running out of capital receive 'wages'. If you actually run this, you will notice that end result of this model very closely resembles the real world wealth distribution. The power law is a robust feature of multiplicative games.

For free in terms of use-value or labor cost maybe. Free in the context of the modern economy, not really.

Well, the cost of printing the money is on shoulders of everyone who has the money, while the benefit is going to whoever is supplying the money.

And labor conditions globally are really an area that americans in particular (though the world in general) don't pay enough attention to. Time and time again the economic benefits of human exploitation seems to make it totally acceptable to those not exploited.
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One thing that is annoying is how the moderately rich (includes poor in developed countries) see it. A chinese worker works for very cheap making ipods - chinese is letting himself being exploited, he's stealing my job, why won't he just work for 'normal' wage, that's the reaction. No, no, your "normal wage"'s purchasing capability is directly reliant on the majority of people not having 'normal' wage and consequently using up very little of all the resources (including their own labour), leaving those for you to consume.

Yep. Global scale is what matters now though, as the market really is global. re: 3d printers fear: the working class which would have been rendered redundant by 3d printing is primarily in china anyway. Massively exploited, as how much you earn is not really a function of how much you produce but a function of how much you own personally and collectively. E.g. if I didn't own anything, I'd not be able to decline a job offer of working for the most basic food, animal feed grade, total of maybe $10/month.

3D printers don't replace the working class.
They replace highly skilled jobs.

They replace the car designer. Before, they needed to train for years, building models out of clay, they would need a combination of art and hand skills. They are artists, sculptors, and much more.
With 3D printer, a CAD model is ran through a few algorithmic permutations (running on a building-sized cluster), then it spits out 55 variations of next car model over night. Suddenly, instead of having some of high paying positions working 3 months for one, you just take pictures of finished models and send them to focus groups. Don't even need people for that, it can be automated, so skip the middle management as well.

Or toys. Today, there are studios which design them. Many are low quality, but there are somewhat big franchising deals. So when a movie comes out, an office in US acts as proxy between hundreds of manufacturers around the globe to ensure the production is ready by movie release.
Enter 3D printers. Designers at studio reuse the 3D CGI models and put those blue prints on the web, for anyone to download and print them, for $5.99. And the high-paying office in US is gone. Manufacturers in China don't lose much, they'll still be mass producing models for those without printers.

A large portion of support sector becomes redundant, including logistics. Buying a replacement part for a computer, car or various other devices is an absurdly large scale operation these days. Starting at design, it then needs to go through life cycle management, logistics and planning, global distribution, down to training of staff at points of sale or repair shops. The number of high-paying jobs such chain supports is vast. From IT (building systems to manage all of these parts) to management (coordinating the flow between all of these), localization (translators at various countries), logistics (again, software and operations, warehouses, dozens of individual companies, cleaner-to-CEO). At the end of day, even gas industry profits due to transporation.
With 3D printer, when a car/device/product is finished, the CAD models that were used to make it are put on the internet. User visits a page, prints the part. Optionally, this can be done at repair shop, where they install it. The entire chain becomes redundant, affecting *millions* of currently middle-class jobs, essentially making them obsolete.


As for unskilled jobs? Well, someone needs to make plastic pellets that printers use. And pay no attention to those lung burning fumes while doing so.

Changes that are coming won't affect unskilled jobs, those will remain plentiful. It's the middle-class and white collar jobs that aren't needed anymore since machinery and computers do it better.

I'm apolitical. I don't know anyone involved in OWS and I don't know what anyone involved wants. I don't know what the members have in common. I'm not interested in finding any of that out.

[quote name='Dmytry' timestamp='1320832762' post='4882054']
Yep. Global scale is what matters now though, as the market really is global. re: 3d printers fear: the working class which would have been rendered redundant by 3d printing is primarily in china anyway. Massively exploited, as how much you earn is not really a function of how much you produce but a function of how much you own personally and collectively. E.g. if I didn't own anything, I'd not be able to decline a job offer of working for the most basic food, animal feed grade, total of maybe $10/month.

3D printers don't replace the working class.
They replace highly skilled jobs.

They replace the car designer. Before, they needed to train for years, building models out of clay, they would need a combination of art and hand skills. They are artists, sculptors, and much more.
With 3D printer, a CAD model is ran through a few algorithmic permutations (running on a building-sized cluster), then it spits out 55 variations of next car model over night. Suddenly, instead of having some of high paying positions working 3 months for one, you just take pictures of finished models and send them to focus groups. Don't even need people for that, it can be automated, so skip the middle management as well.[/quote]

Does not compute. None of what you said is dependent on cost effective 3d printers. You said they would take pictures of the 3d models? wtf? Why not just send renderings of these designs to focus groups? You're making a very weak case for the elimination of skilled jobs through 3d printing technology unless you're strictly referring to the sculptor who used to create the original molds for casting. Someone still has to design the part that is going to be created, and that's where the skill really was to begin with.

[color="#1C2837"]

As for unskilled jobs? Well, someone needs to make plastic pellets that printers use. And pay no attention to those lung burning fumes while doing so.

[color="#1C2837"]

Umm... no. That would be completely automated and would only require technicians who know how to fix the machine when it goes down and a machine operator to dump in more materials to be processed.

I feel like this picture sums up most of my feelings toward 99% of the people involved in the 99% movement (See what I did there?! PUNS)

[quote name='lrh9' timestamp='1320876238' post='4882291']
I'm apolitical. I don't know anyone involved in OWS and I don't know what anyone involved wants. I don't know what the members have in common. I'm not interested in finding any of that out.

Good for you. Otherwise you might actually learn something and lord knows, we don't want that.
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Why you attacking me?