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The Luddites Are Almost Always Wrong: Why Tech Doesn't Kill Jobs
Mystakaphoros writes "Mike Masnick of Techdirt argues that we can all put down our wooden shoes and take a chill pill: technology 'rarely destroys jobs.' For example, telephone operators have largely gone by the wayside, but a (brave) new world of telemarketing and call center support jobs have opened up because of advances in technology, not to mention the Internet. Masnick points out writing from Professor James Bessen that makes the same point: 'In other cases, technology creates offsetting job growth in different occupations or industry segments. For example, word processors and voice mail systems reduced the numbers of typists and switchboard operators, but these technologies also increased the number of more highly skilled secretaries and receptionists, offsetting the job losses. Similarly, Amazon may have eliminated jobs at Borders and other national book chains that relied on bestsellers, but the number of independent booksellers has been growing and with it, more jobs for sales clerks who can provide selections and advice that Amazon cannot easily match.' That said, I think it's worth asking: if machines are going to replace all our fast food workers, are we going to start paying our gourmet chefs minimum wage just because we can?"
Hey now, let's not let facts get in the way. This article uses the same flawed logic as Rick Perry when he says under his Governorship he's created thousands of jobs without telling you roughly 90% are minimum wage jobs.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Though technology may not "destroy" jobs, it certainly shifts them. For example, car factories are increasingly populated with robots. Although that creates economic prosperity that may show up somewhere else, it certainly displaces the unskilled, who previously could at least hold factory jobs.
In my area, we now have garbage trucks that pick up (standardized) trash cans. Presumably, this leads to fewer "garbage men" - who used to be the archetypal unskilled laborers. But the few garbage men that remain now must be skilled as truck drivers.
So, assuming that a certain portion of the population will always be unskilled, and assuming the portion of unskilled jobs is shrinking, the unemployable underclass will continue to grow.
It also fails to take into account that the skills required for the jobs that disappear are entirely different than the skills required for the new jobs that replace them. This means you lose everything you've worked for, career-wise. I might have 30 years in as a buggy whip craftsman, but that doesn't mean I have the skill set required to assemble an automobile. It also means that the salary I've been building up disappears. Even if the jobs are equivalent pay ranges, a senior buggy whip architect probably makes a lot more than a junior steering column technician.
If I started at $40,000/yr 30 years ago and make $75,000/yr today and suddenly lose that because my entire industry has been obsoleted -- including my retirement possibly -- and can now only take a new job at $50,000/yr... I'm still screwed.
I'm not arguing we should stop inventing, but its hugely callous to ignore the difficulties inflicted on people when this kind of thing happens.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
This article is flawed because it relies on historical patterns when we are entering entirely different age. Industrial Age is over and we are transitioning into Information Age. Comparing pre-industrial agricultural society to early industrial age is much better comparison, but then it doesn't support the premise. Few of us that are familiar with the history will tell you that this transition resulted in a lot of societal ills and displaced farmers and merchants did not all find jobs in the factories. Few that did find jobs were ruthlessly exploited and did not at all benefit from this transition.
Comparing telephone operator jobs to telemarketing jobs won't tell you what will happen when automation combined with a growing population will make any kind of job scarce. It is very possible that within generation only top 10% of intellectual ability will be needed, rest will be automated away. Even today we know that productivity already entered exponential growth period. We also know that benefits of this productivity are not reflected in growing wages - nearly all of the extra wealth created by this productivity increase is channeled into corporate dividends and not wages..Pattern is very clear - less workers doing more for about the same pay. This cannot support growing unemployed class by creating service job opportunities, unless you are talking McJobs.
Attempting to portray critics as Luddites is 'poisoning the well' further compounded by willful denial of empirical evidence of the societal trends to the contrary. Yes, author is correct - technology is morally neutral, it is nether good nor bad. What we do with it - and presently as a society we chose to enrich 1% of our population, is what we should focus on.
It also fails to take into account that the skills required for the jobs that disappear are entirely different than the skills required for the new jobs that replace them. This means you lose everything you've worked for, career-wise. I might have 30 years in as a buggy whip craftsman, but that doesn't mean I have the skill set required to assemble an automobile. It also means that the salary I've been building up disappears. Even if the jobs are equivalent pay ranges, a senior buggy whip architect probably makes a lot more than a junior steering column technician.
If I started at $40,000/yr 30 years ago and make $75,000/yr today and suddenly lose that because my entire industry has been obsoleted -- including my retirement possibly -- and can now only take a new job at $50,000/yr... I'm still screwed.
I'm not arguing we should stop inventing, but its hugely callous to ignore the difficulties inflicted on people when this kind of thing happens.
"Callous" is really the only possible word I think we can use here. Look, I respect people's understanding of the benefits of capitalism. There are some brilliant capitalists around here. But when the problem is "solved" by market forces, there's another problem left over-- lots and lots of now-unqualified, unemployed people. Just using their children's hunger as a whip to scramble for a new job may again be a market force in action, but it's certainly not kind.
And then you run into the problem of... if we're all broke on our asses, who is going to buy your products?
How do we really define "provides a basic level of acceptable living"? 100 years ago, even 50 years ago, it was acceptable to not have indoor toilets (my mom didn't when she was a kid, in Canada). Is it considered OK if people can't afford internet or cell phones? Because neither of those are really necessary, and I know plenty of people who go without them, but there's also a huge group of people who think they can't live without them. Same goes for a lot of other luxury items, like cars and designer clothes. Defining that "basic level" is extremely difficult because in a free market, the people making stuff that people buy continually raise prices to the point where people can't just barely afford to buy the necessities. Also, there's the question about people who simply don't need to make an "acceptable living" with their job. High school kids who live at home, sometimes want a few extra dollar to spend on movie tickets and skateboards don't need to be making as much as a someone supporting themselves. Sure you can make the minimum wage lower for those under 18, but that discriminates against young people who for whatever reason don't have dependable parents and need to earn their own money, while continuing to attend highschool classes. There are other ideas, like garuanteed income supplements, where you let the employers pay whatever they and the employee agree on, no minimums, and the government tops up the difference between what the person is making, and the acceptable minimum. But very few governments want to have these services, because it looks like a free hand out, even though in many cases it would be cheaper to operate than the current welfare systems.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
You'll be able to leave your job at McDonald's and get a job cleaning the offices at the robot manufacturing plant!
Are you kidding? They have an industrial-sized Roomba.
It took approximately 65 engineers 2-3 years to design a major line of industrial engineering robot to build infrastructure (say... steel girders), and maybe another 100 full time jobs to build, market and deliver the product.
This line of industrial engineering robot displaced 18,000 low-skilled jobs and replaced them with around 200 high-skilled jobs (maintenance techs).
Those other 17,200 went into the service industry or construction (based on the boom-bust cycle) and are now highly dependent on local fluctuations of the economy.
So, what happened here was an increase in productivity and profits for every business involved - a substantial decrease in salary costs, and a notable decrease in workforce, across the board.
What it does is stratify society. There are 17,000 people struggling to re-train and find low-level jobs, and 300 very well paid engineers and technicians paying them to do menial work.
Then again, perhaps their factory work was menial in the first place, but it is worth pointing out that the massive economic growth of the last 80 years was primarily based on those factory jobs being "middle class".
Why can't tech make having to go to work obsolete?
Why can't we make all the tech stuff, like robots, do all the dumb work for all of us so we can spend the rest of our lives playing, or do the kind of work we really enjoy? Isn't this the frigging thing we should strive to achieve in society? Not create more jobs, but less?
I very much agree with this. We should all be working less. However, American capitalism isn't set up that way. Capital always wants Labor to work more for less money. Everyone would have to be paid more (or the same) for doing less work.
I'm certainly down for that, but we'd probably need a law restricting the work week to 20 hours or something like that.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This line of industrial engineering robot displaced 18,000 low-skilled jobs and replaced them with around 200 high-skilled jobs (maintenance techs). Those other 17,200 went into the service industry or construction ...
Also, in a truly shocking occurrence, 600 people managed to disappear without a trace.
A worthwhile read on the subject: Karl Marx on the effects of technological improvements You might not agree with it, or you might shy away from it solely because of who wrote it, but it was a serious economics argument explaining what happens and why.
I am officially gone from