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Friday 12 October 2012
Is technology to blame for chronic unemployment?

It used to be that new technologies generated lots of new jobs for those displaced from old ones. After farms were mechanized, Americans moved to factories. After manufacturing declined — in part due to technologies that dramatically cut the cost of shipping goods — we moved into services.

But new technologies have been eating away at services, too. Gas station attendants are long gone and telephone operators and bank tellers aren’t far behind. Endangered too are office clerks and secretaries, publishing jobs, and people providing any expertise or information that can now be digitized into a computer.

We still have plenty of jobs in retail sales, education, and health care — but these are also among the least efficient parts of our economy and pressure is building to cut costs. Here again, technology is leading the way. In the next decade, it seems likely that many retail sales workers will be being replaced by online sales. We’re about to see a wave of online courses and classrooms — supplanting some teachers.

Health care has to become more efficient. So patients will carry their own medical files on memory sticks. We’ll also have personal health apps, allowing us to self-diagnose — even measuring our own blood pressure and other vital signs.

All this is good for us as consumers — but as workers we’re putting ourselves out of business. At this rate, 50 years from now, a tiny machine may satisfy all our needs. Call it the “iEverything.” The only problem: none of us will be able to afford it because we’ll all be unemployed.

30 notes

  1. burntjellytoast reblogged this from becauseithinktoomuch
  2. plurdledgabbleblotchits reblogged this from cityparkdog
  3. areyouapeople reblogged this from becauseithinktoomuch and added:
    The worry that the tech is replacing us is very old, and one should note that horses did lose their jobs in the...
  4. becauseithinktoomuch reblogged this from rigatonideology
  5. ahandsomestark reblogged this from azspot
  6. maryylin reblogged this from azspot
  7. cityparkdog reblogged this from azspot and added:
    Have thought this for a long time.
  8. lalibertarienne reblogged this from rigatonideology and added:
    luddites motherfuckers
  9. afronaut reblogged this from rigatonideology and added:
    I’m interested in how this is a fallacy? Do not increases in technological capital result in less socially valued labor...
  10. the-wake-up reblogged this from azspot and added:
    I’ve been saying this for years.
  11. rigatonideology reblogged this from azspot and added:
    wow this is like economic fallacies 101 right here
  12. azspot posted this

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