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?"

Comments

Sure, to lower paying jobs

[dontbgay]

The article is absolutely correct. But it also fails to take into account that the new jobs are lower paying while inflation decreases the value of the new wages.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[smooth wombat]

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.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[Cornwallis]

"...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."

Not exactly a selling point! In years past, the telephone operator wasl almost a family member in small town America. They were helpful - even in the big city. Telemarketers and call center support staff are almost universally loathed.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[Mystakaphoros]

And what happens when McDonald's introduces an automatic fry-cooker, or a machine that makes hamburgers? Just because we currently have a lot of low skill service jobs now doesn't mean that they won't be replaced by technology in the future. With the advances in robotics we can all see where this is going.

Let's assume we can separate all cooks into Grade-A, Grade-B, Grade-C, and Grade-D cooks. Grade D cooks haven't spent much time practicing cooking, and are just barely good enough at it to get a job at McDonald's, while higher grades have worked longer and harder to acquire skills. A machine comes along and replaces all the Grade D cooks. They're pissed that they don't have a job, but they haven't really sunk much time into it, so they go find a different job. But now a machine comes along and replaces the Grade C cooks. A few may just be naturally talented, but by and large they've spent a lot more time (that they can't get back) training to be better cooks.

So they go to look for a new job as a pencil pusher, and sure enough, there are Grade A-D pencil-pushing jobs. Well, there were, except the grade-D pencil-pushing job has also been mechanized. Only people who start off with enough experience to get a Grade C job can get it.

So now we have someone who has trained, but their training is no longer useful. And to compound the problem, we put the onus (and the financial burden) on this person to get themselves retrained, assuming they even have the natural abilities to be a pencil-pusher.

Thankfully, technology has created a new job: computer developer. But this job only starts at Grade B, and then you can go to A and A+. To get to Grade B you need training, education, and experience, and all of that you are expected to acquire on your own time at your own expense. Also, since all those Grade-C and B pencil pushers are out hunting for work, there's increased competition, which means that employers can get you for less. So more training, but lower wages.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[OzPeter]

The article is absolutely correct. But it also fails to take into account that the new jobs are lower paying while inflation decreases the value of the new wages.

This.
 
I can't remember the source, but recently I saw a graph that showed a timeline of $US minimum wage vs inflation. Up until the the 80's or 90's the minimum wage was keeping track with inflation, but after that it flattened off. So inflation kept on going up, but the minimum wage stayed the same.

If the US minimum wage had kept track with inflation, then it would be around $13/hr or $14/hr right now. Interestingly the Australian minimum wage *is* around $14/hr

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[SJHillman]

Who are we kidding? Developers don't start at grade B, they clearly start at grade F.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[rufty_tufty]

Any job is/becomes a minimum wage job if it meets any of the following criterion:
1) It takes relatively little training, i.e. replacements can be brought in rapidly.
2) It is a skill that is common, either because of a good education system or desirability of the task(mostly just a re-phrasing of 1)
3) The people once employed do not have much incentive to move on: i.e. they won't leave if conditions deteriorate

The capitalist in me says this is fine* as long as the minimum wage provides a basic level of acceptable living**. If you wish to have more than the minimum it is then up to you to do a job that is either undesirable or one that is both highly & unusually skilled. Alternatively if the problem with that sector is that the business owner is skimming off the profits then it is up to you to challenge that and become a business owner yourself***; take the risk and make the investment or stop complaining.
Look at some of the most successful tech companies and I don't think it is any co-incidence that they put a lot of effort into making sure 3 is not a factor by trying to have good working conditions. They need to do this because !1 is such an issue for them.

* If the employer can't afford to pay the minimum wage then capitalism should kick in and mean that they don't employ someone for that role because it is not worth it for society to do so.
** I do not believe this is the case and this needs to change. Acceptable minimum to me includes healthcare, pension and ability to support a basic family.
*** There are some sectors where again this is not an issue, one man can't decide to become the next Apple, but there are always ways into a sector if you have idea and skills and luck and are prepared to take the risk.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[Mystakaphoros]

Who are we kidding? Developers don't start at grade B, they clearly start at grade F.

And if you're like me, you basically remain at Grade F and then go become an English major.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[Zero__Kelvin]

You'll be able to leave your job at McDonald's and get a job cleaning the offices at the robot manufacturing plant!

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[CastrTroy]

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.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[ILongForDarkness]

Your right about the hierarchy. Sometimes technology focuses on the high end though just because that is where labor is really expensive. So say the very well paid automotive or naval welders. Auto industry has the money and the financial incentive to get people off their pensions and other benefits so they drop the $3M for a robot that someone welding dinky cars would just outsource.

In short you can't even feel safe if you are an A level cook dealing with truffles and such all day. Someone realizes you are wasting 10% of an ingredient that costs $300/lb and comes up with a machine to process it instead. You are now a line cook placing prepped meals onto plates and doing the final saucing.

Programming can become less lucerative for employees over time for example and I suspect our days of great salaries are numbered. Paying $300 for a piece of boxed software every few years is much more profitable for a company than selling an Office Online for ~$5 a month and being required to keep servers up and running and constant updates to compete. These "efficiencies" will be translated down the hierarchy to ultimately being able to spend less money on paying staff well.

Heck if you think tech hasn't hurt peoples jobs prospects just look at the DOW "industrial" average, it is now made up of ~75% non manufacturing jobs a lot of those probably have lots of good jobs but their bottom rung is probably much lower than the bottom rung was for a DOW industrial company back in the day (say Walmart, Visa, Home Depot for example).

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[smooth wombat]

Which is why we as a society need to come up with a way of offering training and education to those displaced workers, at no cost to the displaced workers.

We do. It's called job retraining and is touted, mainly, by the Republicans who offer it up every time the other side talks about shipping jobs overseas and what about the workers who won't have jobs. Guess what, it doesn't work. And still doesn't.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[Mystakaphoros]

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.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why we should stop talking about "jobs" as a unit of quantitative measurement. Closing a Boeing plant with 250 workers making $75,000 per year and opening a mall in its place with 300 part-time workers making $15,000 per year can be described as "creating 50 jobs," but it's bullshit. The community has lost 76% of the personal income that those Boeing workers were making. That's money that won't be spent at the grocery store, buying a new car, paying sales tax, and so on. The *real* impact of such a move could be captured by some measure that takes into account the pay difference. I suggest something like the dollar--hours FTE per capita. An mental shortcut to imagine this measurement is to figure what one person working full-time would earn if they received all of the pay. The Boeing plant had 9,014 dollar-hours worth of employment, but the mall only has 2,163 dollar-hours.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[SecurityTheatre]

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".

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[SecurityTheatre]

If instead you pay a little more, you can hold onto those good workers and have maybe 20% of the head count you had before and increase profitability.

Seriously, show me a call center where you can eliminate 4/5 of the employees and still keep up with call volume?

Really?!

Do you think management is that incompetent? I know most middle-management in a call center is a tad slow, but 4/5? You're completely full of it.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[jenningsthecat]

Also, since all those Grade-C and B pencil pushers are out hunting for work, there's increased competition, which means that employers can get you for less. So more training, but lower wages

More, (and more expensive) training required for jobs that pay ever-decreasing wages is an across-the-board trend. If you wonder why the middle class is disappearing, look no farther.

The growth in productive capacity of mankind - the efficiency with which we grow and harvest food, take ore and oil from the earth and process it into fuel and manufactured goods, etc, has far outstripped our population growth. Yet we have growing economic uncertainty and a shrinking middle class coincident with a period of unprecedented per capita productive capacity. Why is this so? The sound-bite answer is "concentration of wealth". The complete answer is incredibly complex - historical events, human nature, natural laws, conspiracies, and a huge number of other factors, (many of which we're likely not aware of), contribute to the situation.

What's needed, (and here's where the Libertarians, capitalists, free-marketeers, and other rugged individualist types start howling), is a re-boot of the system. Our top-heavy corporatocracy needs to have its wealth re-distributed in a more equitable fashion. We need to get over the notion that landing first in line gives anyone a claim in perpetuity to resources and privileges. I have nothing against wealth - I'd love to be wealthy myself. But when a little wealth acquired through hard work, skill, and talent is transmuted into a vast monopolistic empire holding a sword over the heads of a huge percentage of the population, something needs to change. All those anti-collectivists out there conveniently ignore the fact that corporations are collectives, and that they are also welfare recipients who game the system, and make up and impose their own rules, in order to accrue wealth and power in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with providing goods and services of value in a truly competitive environment.

If we don't all come together and change this situation in an orderly fashion, then revolution is almost inevitable, and the next one may be very bloody indeed.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[sandytaru]

As someone who did telemarketing for a few months in college (before merrily transferring over to an inbound call center until I graduated), I can assure you the majority of them are uneducated beyond high school or a GED and literally cannot get any other job that pays as much. (Also, indoor work with no heavy lifting.) Their one saving grace tends to be good articulation and speech, although even that falls by the wayside at the scuzzier companies.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[SecurityTheatre]

Inflation is primariliy measured by changes to the CPI.

The CPI is calculated by taking a "basket of goods" that a consumer would buy.

This includes things like... a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, a gallon of gasoline, a pound of beef, a 600sqft apartment in downtown of several cities, a 1200sqft house in the suburbs of several cities.

Then you average it out and see if it changes over time.

How is that not cost of living?

Here is the actual basket and weighting from Canada:

http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb-bmdi/document/2301_D48_T9_V2-eng.htm

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[sjames]

For many people, no car == no job. Most of the U.S. is laid out assuming that people have a car. In theory, they could move to where they don't need a car, but things are more expensive in such places to the point that it would be cheaper to get the car.

Internet is becoming increasingly a necessity in order to participate in society. Educated voters can't depend on network news to be informed anymore.

Food stamps and other social safety already act as a handout to minimum wage employers. We pay the costs of maintaining their worker units and they profit. Minimum wage needs to be high enough that employers are actually paying the full cost of an employee's labor.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[dkleinsc]

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.

Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs

[blackiner]

Until video teaching replaces teachers because of the budget deficits.

Current reality is even more frightening. The education book publishers and tech companies are already pushing iPads, digital books, digital exercises, digital quizes, and digital tests on students. This is *already* happening in many states, California being perhaps the biggest example. You have schools beholden to these entrenched tech companies and publishers (although, I guess that is nothing new), and those companies are pushing automated teaching tools to the nation's children in public schools.

If this process ever reaches critical mass, schools will no longer have teachers, and corporations will have complete control over education. Just picture it, a student has trouble with a problem, they tap the help button on the iPad, and then a Pearson rep comes up in video chat. Ugh. And then that job will be outsourced. Critical thinking's fossilized remains will be found years later by whatever out evolves us.

hahahahahaahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, this guy doesn't know anything about the restaurant industry, at least in the USA. Most "chefs" are already making minimum wage or very close to it. In the USA, only the servers and managers make money in a restaurant due to the messed up tip system. However, when it comes to "gourmet chefs" they make even less. At the highest levels, a.k.a. 3 star restaurants, most of the kitchen staff are unpaid interns. They all dream of opening up their own place some day.

Luddites aren't obsolete yet

[TheloniousToady]

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.

Re:Luddites aren't obsolete yet

[Rob the Bold]

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.

I actually know a guy who worked as a garbageman who got replaced by automation. It paid good money, because he had qualifications that most people didn't. He had the strength and agility to lift 70 lb barrels into the truck, hang on for dear life at speed, tolerate a "variety" of weather conditions and a living situation that allowed him to go to work at 4 or 5 AM. Unfortunately, when the demand for those skills and qualifications evaporated overnight, there weren't that many package handling jobs to absorb the influx, and his earning ability dropped just as quickly. Kinda sucks to be forced into a 6-12 month unpaid vacation while trying to find money to get trained for something else at wages that will never match what he made before. No way around it, of course, those jobs are just gone and he understands that. He's got another job, so I guess you could say his job wasn't "killed," it just became something else that didn't pay as well even after becoming proficient.

Lower Wages for Gourmet Chefs?

[Nova Express]

That depends on one question: Can we replace them with illegal aliens?

Because the political establishment, along with business interests, have decided that a permanent underclass of illegal alien workers is just fine with them. This in turn has depressed the wages on labor-intensive jobs while making welfare a more attractive option than work for many.

The unwillingness to enforce border controls has probably cost more Americans jobs in the last 20 years than any technological advance.

Re:Lower Wages for Gourmet Chefs?

[Joining Yet Again]

What the hell are you talking about? It's called The Internationale for a reason.

The main difference between a socialist and a capitalist is that socialists think you shouldn't be rewarded for investment, only for work, IOW no reward for laziness.

Re:Lower Wages for Gourmet Chefs?

[T.E.D.]

making welfare a more attractive option than work for many.

That just shows you how ludicrously, immorally low we have our minimum wage set to right now. However, I will admit that it is also pretty darn messed up that we have set up a system where only those here illegally (an thus unable to collect welfare) would take an actual minimum wage job, and then we yell and scream at the inevitable flood of illegal aliens who come here for all those jobs we reserved just for them. Like they are somehow more immoral for wanting a better life for their families, than are the rich folks who set up this system for them to have that role.

Re:Lower Wages for Gourmet Chefs?

[kilfarsnar]

The unwillingness to prosecute businesses who employ illegal aliens has probably cost more Americans jobs in the last 20 years than any technological advance.

FTFY

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I haven't had a secretary since smart phones came on the market. The Administrative assistant was canned and we were handed these things.

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.'

Borders went out of business, Barnes and Noble is hanging on a thread and the ONLY independent bookstore around me is a Christian bookstore. And they a lot MORE than books.

Look it, the data is showing that between automation and globalization, it is doing some real harm to our employment here in the US. And what this article misses is that job replacement isn't always one-to-one. Meaning for one worker who loses a job because of automation, there isn't always another job him to slip into: it usually hundreds get canned and a fraction of those move into the new area.

I am by NO means against automation - to head off the ad-hominems - but what I'm trying to point out is that there are some drastic changes happening NOW in our economy and things are going to get ugly.

Oh, to the weavers. Back in the 19th Century, automation increased worker productivity - it didn't replace them because you needed a human to be the brain of the machine.

Today, humans aren't necessary because the machines are "smart" enough to be autonomous.

When those new looms were put in place, you needed operators, and a few (children) to go inside a running machine to lubricate it - they lost life and limb and we got those "job killing" government regulations as a result.

So maybe a weaver lost their job as a weaver, but an entire crew was hired for the new machine.

Today, it's the opposite. Entire lines are replaced by robots and maintained and programmed by a hand full of people.

And that as a society is where we 're going to have to make some hard adjustments.

Anyway, BOOKS are going to be written on this and there's no way to do justice on the topic in a techdirt article let alone a Slashdot post.

Yes it does

[T.E.D.]

Tech most certianly does kill jobs. It may make even more in the long term, but they are very different jobs. For the 50 year old newly laid off factory worker with kids he has to put through college now, the fact that there are suddenly lots of new jobs in robot design isn't a lot of comfort.

Telemarketer

[Rob the Bold]

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

If I had my druthers -- and we don't, because time and tech marches on -- I'd rather be an AT&T operator in 1973 than a telemarketer in 2013.

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?

Yes. If the "market" can set wages below minimum for gourmet chefs due to an infusion of newly retrained fast food employees so they bottom out at that limit, then it will. That's just what happens. Whether or not that entire scenario occurs -- laid off McDonald's cashiers going to culinary programs and flooding the upscale restaurant and hospitality business letting wages be depressed rather than trying to find other more immediately available jobs -- that's really the question to be asking. (I would answer "no" to that question.)

more data would be helpful

[Trepidity]

The basic parameters of the argument are clear, sure, and have been clear for a few hundred years: automation may replace large numbers of jobs with machines controlled by a smaller number of people, but may also create new jobs, either directly working on the technology involved, or indirectly in other areas. The more difficult questions are in the details. Do the numbers always match up, and what factors influence whether they match up? Does automation lead to more general shifts in the economy, e.g. either concentration of wealth or decentralization of wealth? If it could do either, what factors influence that?

My own view is to be rather skeptical that there is a universal answer. These kinds of articles give off a whiff of a kind of Panglossian view that the technology/economy ecosystem is in a Gaia-like eternal balance, and I don't see a strong reason to believe that's true. Instead I think we need to look at specifics to determine what effects a given technological advance, within a particular existing economic situation, will have.

Re:Sure, to *differently skilled* jobs

[Bacon Bits]

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.

Tech should make jobs obsolete

[Arduenn6058]

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?

Re:Tech should make jobs obsolete

[kilfarsnar]

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.

Re:This article assumes...

[Trepidity]

But what happens computers are as good as people in most of all the things that qualify as jobs nowadays?

Science fiction writing covers the two limit cases pretty well. Let's say machines can now account for all basic human needs, producing food, clothing, shelter, etc. sufficient for the whole human population. Then at the dystopian and utopian extremes, we have:

Possibility 1: These machines are owned by a small ruling class, who uses their control over this vast pool of robot labor to rule the world, and over the impoverished underclass who own no robots.

Possibility 2: These machines provide for everyone's needs, freeing up humans for a glorious age of space exploration, science, what-have-you.

This article is nonsense

[sinij]

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.

Absolutely False

[sl4shd0rk]

How many people in Detroit were out of work once robots started spot welding all the car frames and moving parts into position for assembly? How about Robots in manufacturing in general? Lots of people used to do those jobs. Check out How It's Made sometime. You'll see huge assembly lines full of robots where people used to stand. Hardly anyone walking around.

I've personally seen the labor force in Manufacturing facilities decline due to automated machining processes; 1 or 2 guys running 6 CNC machines where it used to take 6 people to do it manually. Polishing metal to a lustrous finish used to be a skill reserved for the 1 or 2 old German guys in the place. Now, you have CNC polishers do it in 5 different axes nonetheless.

Next, lets talk about how global connectivity has put people out of work. CNC again. You only need one programmer to transfer the machining code to some place in china where a dude running the CNC machine uploads it, puts a chunk of steel on the table , and hits the Go button. For $1.75/hour wages.

TFA is complete BS.

Technological progress enables the shadow economy

[Neo-Rio-101]

Technical progress has enormously boosted productivity worldwide and is still increasing it at a rate of about 2% per year. Theoretically, we needed to work four days less every year for producing the same goods and earning the same income. However it does not happen this way. Producers use productivity boosts for reducing costs - mostly wages and salaries. This is supposed to improve their profits, but it also has an adverse affect. Layoffs, unemployment, subsequent demand shortfall and economic crises eat a large part of the benefits from increased productivity. The remaining excess profits are invested - however not in production of goods, but in financial assets. Hedge funds, investment banks, and trading firms circulate an immense money volume (up to seven trillion US$ per day) through the financial markets, this way creating a shadow economy that largely surpasses the market of real products and services. It consumes most rewards of technical progress, and gives back occasional market crashes and financial crises.

But it also offers the opportunity to redistribute some of the excess profit back from the rich to the poor. Providing many people with a small but regular trading income will take liquidity out of the financial markets and inject it back into the production cycle. This will boost demand worldwide and soften the world's economical problems.

It's the regular trading income thing that has a lot of people stumped though.

What the Luddites were really rebelling against.

[wwwrench]

I really hate the way the term Luddite is used -- people should read a bit of history (here for a start). The real Luddites were not anti-technology. They were highly skilled workers rebelling against the creation of textile sweatshops. It's a pity their rebellion was put down so violently -- we have a need for more Luddites in today's economy where our iPhones are produced by people who are effectively living in slavery.

Re:Sure, to *differently skilled* jobs

[Mystakaphoros]

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?

Your Statement is Demonstrably False

[Nova Express]

Texas has added wages across all income levels.

But no, you just keep quoting that 90% figure from the Institute for Numbers I Pulled Out of My Ass...

It's not tech, it's productivity

[bsidneysmith]

"Tech vs. Jobs" is the wrong frame, and the wrong debate. Jobs are lost, and (partially) replaced by lower-wage jobs, because of the enormous increases in productivity that increased technology (and improved management practices) brings. This should be making everybody better off--more product for less work should mean generally higher standards of living. The reason it doesn't is because our economic paradigm awards all of the benefits of increased productivity to capital, and none to labor. We need a system in which anyone who wishes can make a living working about 20 hours/week. But unless we rethink our economics we are teetering towards a crash, because the labor sector is collapsing, and capital must soon follow because it relies on a healthy consumer class--the very laborers whose livings have been pulled out from under them. If one looks at labor participation rates (instead of govt. unemployment numbers) the situation becomes quite clear.

Re:Sure, to *differently skilled* jobs

[poopdeville]

I'm a poor in America. I bought a used 25$ tv about two years. I saved for years to buy a 300$ laptop. I'll have to save for 5 years to finish my BA in math. I haven't spent a single dollar that wasn't for food, housing, or electricity in over a year. I don't have a phone or car or an air conditioner.

The dollars are stretched, and the situation is getting worse.