Technology vs. Jobs
from the oh-calm-down dept
For years, the Luddite crowd would make fun of companies spending on technology, complaining that there was no evidence that it helped productivity. They usually made the common mistake of looking at the aggregate result of technology - which has bad implementations more than canceling out the benefits of good implementations. Now, it appears to be the very same people are complaining that technology is costing people jobs because it actually is helping productivity. Thus, the "good news" that technology is improving productivity (the opposite of what these same people were complaining about) is now considered "bad news" because companies are now spending on technology again instead of hiring people. Of course, this is short term thinking. In the longer term, an increase in productivity, and an increase in technology buying opens up additional jobs in other sectors.
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What if
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Re: What if
By the way, yesterday I had some trouble with my home cable modem connection, and had a fun time dealing with Comcast tech support. First, it takes eight levels through the touchtone tree to get to a human (2,1,1,2,1,2,1,2 for anyone who needs to call) and the first time I did, they told me that there were too many people on hold, and that I should just "call back later".
I finally went online via dialup, and went to their website which has no information whatsoever. I clicked on an option to talk to a representative via chat, and got a "404 page not found".
Now that's customer service.
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Re: What if
"Now that's customer service."
So Mike, why haven't you "drifted" away from comcast?
Unfortunately in these days of megacorporations, bad service no longer means lost business. Especially if the company giving the bad service is your only option.
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Re: What if
Yup. The problem is that they're my only option *right now*. However, I've been watching carefully to see when other options come to my home. As soon as I was done with Comcast, I started checking out Speakeasy again. The problem is we're too far from the CO to get any reasonable speeds at this point.
But, the second another viable option is there, then I'm gone.
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jobs going going ........gone
Who said capitalism was about creating jobs. It's not. It's about a FEW making alot and that PEOPLE are expendible.
I used to think capitalism was great until i saw Clintons Economy blow away anything the recession republicans produced with their offshoring of jobs.
I don't want to be too negative . One way to fight all the job destroyers is to buy american and to buy from companies that hire Americans and pay good wages .
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No Subject Given
I don't want to be too negative . One way to fight all the job destroyers is to buy american and to buy from companies that hire Americans and pay good wages ."
Clinton was not anti-capitalist -- if anything, he was more consistently capitalist than the Bush administration, which has been very busy erecting barriers to trade (tarrifs on steel, agriculture, catfish). Let's not forget that Clinton was instrumental in passing GATT and NAFTA, in addition to increasing involvement in the WTO. He did not hold the protectionist position you hold.
With respect to Mike's post, I don't really agree that every sucessive stage of automation will continue to create more jobs. As of so far, that has been the case. Automation cut production costs, allowing the savings to be used elsewhere, which promoted new industries. And of course, workers were required to help manufacture the machines used in the automation process.
However, I think it is very possible that the need for manual labor and the more menial forms of mental labor will decline as technology advances. I believe Techdirt linked to the article about three-dimensional "printing" -- machines squirting out liquified raw material according to electronic blueprints to create physical objects. Further away is the possibility of nano-machines assembling physical objects without the aid of a human hand. Most of the work humans do now is make-work that is only necessary because the technological cost of automating the tasks involved is higher than the cost of employing workers. However, this will not always be the case.
I don't think this is a bad thing. I'd like to live in a post-scarcity society in which the marginal cost of mass production and distribution is zero. This is already the case for information -- anything that can be reduced to binary code. It's only a matter of time before this is possible for physical objects. People are increasingly finding it unnecessary to pay for information, software, multimedia, etc. If there is no marginal costs involved in producing the basic necessities for survival, the problem the problem of tech-induced unemployment could solve itself: people simply wouldn't need to work for a living anymore.
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If they don't work for a living, what will they do? Go on welfare? With ample free time, they will have more babies.
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Re: No Subject Given
Welfare payments are only required if there housing, clothing, food and utilities bear a cost in terms of labor and resources. If technology becomes sufficiently advanced that these needs can be satisfied without human labor or resource extraction, such costs would be eliminated, as would the need for welfare.
All forms of information that can be converted into a digital format can be copied and distributed without cost -- a file transfer only carries a cost in terms of time, and that cost continues to drop as bandwidth expands. People who create their own software and multi-media can distribute their works for free because of this. Technology is not sufficiently advanced to enable people to do this with physical matter. However, in the distant future, as technologies such as nanotech, biotech, renewable energy, "object printing", desalination, hydroponics, etc are integrated with each other and perfected, this could change. My post wasn't intended to provide a short-term solution to any problem. I was arguing against Mike's post by saying that it is possible that technology might make employment obsolete, but that this won't necessarily be a problem.
And free time has never been the cause of high-birth rates -- that's just ridiculous. The countries with the highest birth rates are in the developing world. Labor-intensive agricultural societies have high-birth rates due to a need for helping hands on the farm, and also due to low levels of education. In industrialized societies, children are not an economic asset and education levels are higher -- Consequently, people have fewer kids. Europe and Japan's birth rates are below replacement rate, and people living in Denmark have much more free time than those living in Pakistan.
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The few
By the way if IMPORTS are so great for jobs and this country then why do we make anything in this country ??????? hmmmmmm ..........Answer that.
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Technology vs. Jobs
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