Posted on 08/04/2014 7:43:27 AM PDT by PapaNew
Is the increasing automation of our economy a threat to American wages and jobs? Should the American worker fear the rise of the robots? No, not really.
Eighty years ago, John Maynard Keynes warned that society faced “a new disease” of “technological unemployment” in which the “means of economizing the use of labor [were] outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor.” Much more recently, Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute wrote about how “robot workers could tear America’s social fabric.” Strain worries that machines could eliminate the livelihoods of millions of less-skilled workers.
These fears are misplaced. In reality, technological advances will improve living standards and working conditions for the vast majority of Americans.
Computers have certainly automated many tasks. From travel to banking to manufacturing to retail, machines now perform formerly human tasks quickly and reliably. Technology has eliminated countless jobs in the U.S. and around the world. Even Foxconn, famous for its vast iPhone-assembly lines in Taiwan, plans to install a million robots.
But almost as quickly as technology has eliminated some jobs, it has created new ones. Like developing smartphone apps. Or shuttling Uber passengers. Or moving inventory in Amazon warehouses. Contrary to Keynes’s prediction of 15-hour workweeks, the economy has always found new uses for displaced workers.
Why? Human wants have proved insatiable. Most Americans could work 15 hours a week and make as much as the average Joe in the 1930s did. But few Americans today would accept that standard of living — in a much smaller dwelling with no TV, no air conditioning, and certainly no smartphone. All these “extras” require workers to produce them.
Indeed, automation drives growth in living standards. In order for the average American to consume more, the average worker must produce more. Automation enables businesses to make more goods with less labor, which means more output and higher living standards.
A construction worker who can operate a backhoe will make much more than one using only a shovel. An economy with backhoes will also be able to build a lot more.
In a world with more automation, not only will work still exist, it’ll be safer. Computers have automated many of the more-demanding manual-labor jobs in the economy, and workplace injuries and deaths have fallen steadily as machines took over these more physically dangerous tasks. Labor-saving technology benefits society.
Of course some people will wind up worse off than before. Some whose jobs get automated will have difficulty finding work that pays as much. And higher demand for non-routine skills will put less-skilled workers at a relative disadvantage. But the vast majority of workers will almost certainly come out ahead.
This chick saddled us with Obama. She’s the one that scuttled her boyfriend Senator’s campaign, which led to Obama winning improbably.
And real estate never goes down. Already there is a percentage of the population that has little to offer the job market that automated machines can't do better, faster, cheaper. These unemployable people are essentially human pets. This percentage will grow. While the overall quality of life will keep improving, the idea there will be a good job in the future for everyone that wants one just isn't so. For the first time in history, machine sensors, brains, and brawn now exceed many human capabilities, and their costs go down about 10% per year while human labor costs go up. What we are witnessing is the rise of the machines.
Me too.
You’re ignoring a few things and historical fact which along with theory contradicts these fears. There has always been a fear that advancement in high tech is a threat to the economy.
But advancement in technology has always been a boon to the economy providing more opportunities. Some examples of what’s being ignored are, somebody has to design, build, and sell these machines. Somebody has to design, build and sell the components. Somebody also has to maintain these automated entities. A whole new supply chain and derivative supply chains up and down are created.
Was it her fault? I thought the divorce papers were sealed, and the Obama campaign were able to get access to them anyway.
I wish! I’m tired of doing the laundry, washing the dishes, vaccuming, mopping, cleaning toilets, making beds, cooking dinner, dusting and picking up after everyone. The robots can’t get here soon enough.
nothing fearful in it, and plenty of historical fact. As I said, technology is a force multiplier, that’s simple history, it allows us to get more stuff done with fewer people. The key from the industrial revolution to now is that we’ve been in a position to focus on the more stuff, we’ve dramatically upped the standard of living in our culture because there always seems to be more stuff TO do so there’s something for the displaced people.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, the current wave of technology seems to be focusing on the fewer people. Just look at how it’s already going. We now have strip mining operations that are totally automated, all the machines are running themselves with a small number of human “supervisors” watching from an airport like control tower. Factory farms run similarly, machines do a lot of work providing tons of food to the masses with very few people having to do anything. Cargo ships used to have huge crews, now they autopilot around the world with a couple of people on them who do pretty much nothing except be there to witness if pirates steal something and fill out paperwork on both ends.
3D printers are well on their way to making clothing. Look at how much retail space we dedicate to clothing, think about the supply chain that feeds that beast. What happens to all that when the average American has a printer in their house that will make today’s clothing for us while we’re in the shower?
And remember a situation where we simply don’t need most people to have a job isn’t necessarily worse off. It’s just a different kind of better. All basic needs (which will be a higher standard of living than what we currently call basic needs) will be able to be available with a very small percentage of the population having jobs. It’ll require a serious sea change in our thought process, but this is the future that’s smelling a lot closer than it used to.
A little example, at the end of 1976 I started managing in a Mcdonald's and had a total hourly crew of 135 on the schedule, when I left in 98 I was doing the same volume of business with a total hourly crew of about 40 on the schedule. All of this was driven by minimum wage increases and reduced profit margins. So if the minimum wage gets pushed up like these idiots want you can be damned sure that the larger operation will rapidly move into further mechanization and all of these uneducated "immigrants" will have even less pay to not raise a family on, so open up your wallets and be a good American taxpayer.
Expensive labor makes expensive machines cheaper. I was in McD land when we made the transition from flat grills to clamshells, and the lunch rush grill crew went from 3 or 4 (and sometimes 5) to 2 or 3 and never more than 3. After I left they added staging cabinets which I’m sure reduced it more (3 probably became a rarity). Now I’ve seen there’s machines available (expensive, until labor costs go up) to make it so the only person that will be needed in the grill is somebody to bring it supplies. It’s a natural evolution. Add kiosks up front and pretty soon the whole store will need 1 person at lunch rush just watching to call the repairman if somebody vandalizes the machines.
Exactly, machines require nor tax or payroll payments, no unemployment, work comp or insurance. And machines never ever demand a wage increase, at least not yet. People think that McD’s are gold mines, once they were, but increased wages, competition and loss leader menu items have sorely reduced the assay value of the ore.
The production cost of of any carbonated beverage any where is is miniscule to the outrageous profit margin. The beverage dispensers where moved to the lobby, despite pilferage and very slightly reduced profits so that the cashiers could churn through more transactions without stopping to make a drink, it takes no time at all to put a empty cup on a tray. I was there , I implemented it in my store so I know the real reason.
No, historical fact is that technological advances has never contracted the economy or created fewer opportunities, but has always expanded the economy and opportunities, not to mention befitting the consumer by driving prices lower.
Some examples of what’s being ignored are, somebody has to design, build, and sell these machines. Somebody has to design, build and sell the components. Somebody also has to maintain these automated entities. Entire new supply chains are created and derivative supply chains up and down as well as new markets are created.
There are jobs robots can’t fill for a long time - many of which are the blue collar / skilled trades Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame encourages.
The Great Shift Toward Automation and the Future of Employment
http://tamarawilhite.hubpages.com/hub/The-Great-Shift-and-the-Future-of-Employment
The CoDominium series of books was written in the 1960s. The authors looked ahead and saw welfare estates/islands, where 90% or so lived on the dole with free drugs and the government periodically released sterility viruses to control their numbers. The taxpayers worked, and they got to vote.
Part of the government’s solution was to ship a lot of the welfare crowd and revolutionary types off world, building up the colonies with a slave labor / indentured servitude that taught a lot of them to work. But we don’t have interstellar colonies.
Yes, and as historical fact and theory both show us, advances in technology always produce whole vistas of new markets, supply chains, and opportunities.
I’m not saying it will contract the economy or create fewer opportunities. That’s you staying in a box. Technically speaking in a world where we only need the labor of 10 to 25% of the populace to provide for the basic needs of the populace provide MASSIVE opportunities. Just not for old world style “jobs”. People now have the opportunity to create. Art, science, whatever they feel like. And as for the economy if we get anything close to replicators the economy quite simple doesn’t matter anymore.
It’s a very small number of people needed to design these machines. They, like so much else we have, would be built by other machines. And thanks to the web things already basically sell themselves. The supply chain is much smaller and simpler. Our current economy is built on harvesting raw material, delivering it to somebody that will turn it into a middle product, deliver that to somebody that will turn it into a finished product, then deliver that to the seller. A 3D printer based economy will turn raw material (a much cheaper, easier to get, less labor intensive, probably recycled raw material) turn it into print media and deliver it to our homes. 2/3 of the process (and all the jobs that it includes) just evaporated.
If these technologies continue on the path they look like they’re on we will need to change our basic concept of the relationship between people and stuff and how the former acquire the later. Jobs will quite simple not be necessary or available for most of the population, and yet people without jobs will not be leaches or poor, they will be normal. The big question is does it turn out well like Star Trek or bad like Judge Dredd.
Your scenario is based on conjecture and sides with negativity and fear of the future in which there are no guarantees except the promise of freedom and the free market economy, which is freedom in action. I'm in the better company of historical fact and economic theory that embraces the freedom. I don't understand people who call themselves "conservatives" who would rather have "guaranteed" results (a socialist illusion if there ever was one) than embrace the risks and rewards of freedom and the free market economy.
Historical fact clearly shows that socialist government guarantees results but doesn't deliver (many ancient and recent examples of that). It also shows that freedom and the free market doesn't guarantee results, only opportunities, requires faith, risk, and bravery, and has always resulted in a happier society but also a more prosperous society. Your world, one that fears freedom, would have socialist governmental guarantees (the only other alternative to freedom and the free market), and the historical record of socialism is poverty and misery.
Think I'll go with fact, sound theory going all the way back to Adam Smith, and a very good track record.
No, what I’m describing is a situation where the economy is no longer the driving force behind the distribution of goods in the country. The economy, as it’s been known throughout history, is all about supply imbalance, there’s always too much or not enough of something, raw materials, finished materials, labor. And that imbalance drives the prices of everything, and prices to a certain level drives the supply and demand, which of course effects the prices, etc etc etc. And we call that the economy and it grows and shrinks based on these imbalances. And that’s the big reason why technology always in the past has grown the economy, because it always grew a supply, usually 2 supplies actually, both labor and material.
What we’re looking at with the rise of robots and 3D printers is a world where supply imbalance simply doesn’t matter anymore. They’re going to grow supplies so high that it just doesn’t matter anymore. Good really won’t need to be distributed on the old model anymore. With robots labor eventually becomes infinitely available, just throw more robots at it. With 3D printers finished good basically become infinitely available, yeah you still need to put your print media into it, but so much of that will be recycled goods, it’ll basically be put your old ratty shirt in one side get a new nice shirt out the other.
I’m not naysaying, nor am I negative of fearful. And the fact that you continue to attack me rather than deal with what I’m saying is telling. Stop running straight for the fallacy of well poisoning and look at the FACTS. The FACTS are that we’re on the cusp of MASSIVE changes the basic fabric of how we create and distribute goods in this country. And the old models simply won’t apply anymore. We are entering a world where we quite simply do not need human labor, there will be no use for it. We will have machines that can do everything faster, cheaper, 24/7, never with a sick day.
You aren’t going with fact. You’re going with history and fallacy. And history is nice, but remember the first rule of the stock market: past events do not guarantee future performance. Reality is changing here. Right now in front of you. You can either deal with it or pretend it’s not. But understand that every time you say my position is one of fear not only are you lying (because I’ve now told you multiple times there’s no fear here, so you know it’s not true but you keep saying it), you’re showing you know the facts don’t back you.
Deal with facts. If your position you’ll be able to explain where the new jobs come from when 90% of the stuff in the new American home is printed on their 3D printer. Go ahead, back your position with logic: where are the jobs when the entire retail cycle has just become obsolete? My position is there aren’t any AND that’s OK, it’s not a bad thing because we as a people are freed to enjoy life and be creative. The age of wage slavery ends, that’s REAL freedom.
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