"Are jobs obsolete?" -CNN

mikenotspam · Post by **mikenotspam** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:13 am

Of interest to FI folks:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/ ... .obsolete/

Post by **jacob** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:23 am

The problem is how to align the high rate of technology replacing people with people obviously not getting smarter enough to do higher level work at the same increasing rate under the moral ["farming"] imperative that "people must work to eat".
My dad suggested the solution was to reduce the number of working hours even if it meant lower business efficiency. If profitability is lost, businesses can be government subsidized (tax breaks) which would be more beneficial in the aggregate than social transfers.
Europe has taken that road. Typical numbers for vacation is 4-6 weeks per years and typical work weeks are 35-38 hours.

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:36 am

The resistance to less work, as Jacob points out, is cultural, not structural.
I remember when France lowered their work week to 35 hours and were harshly criticized for it. I believe they have since increased the work week: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -week.html
How many of you would give up ERE if you could work at your current job for 4 hours a week instead of 40+?

dan23 · Post by **dan23** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:44 am

I completely agree with your dad. Lowering the hours worked is pretty much the only feasible solution I can think of. Interestingly, we almost had a 30 hour work week in the 1930s – it passed the Senate and not the House. Alternatively you could have a really young retirement age (which is just another way of lowering hours worked), but I imagine this would be difficult to manage unless the total population in different age ranges stays fairly constant.
Politically, this is unlikely to happen anytime soon, especially in the US. We have a kind of race to the bottom when it comes to labor, based on the premise that we need to to “compete in a global marketplace.” If I remember correctly, Sarkozy said something like that a few years back in support of France leaving the 35 hour work week. The ultimate point this logic takes us, is that we should have China’s labor standards so we can compete with China.
On a related note, I read this article today:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02 ... uses-labor

and found it pretty scary (reminiscent of Ehrenreich’s book). It seems to suggest a move to workers as fungible temps. That people put up with these kind of conditions also suggests that if you wanted to lower hours, you really would need to increase the safety net in the US - since there are many in US who can’t afford some pretty basic things, there would always be an incentive to cheat and try to work more hours to meet basic needs.

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:52 am

We could go back to one wage earner per family unit to reduce the number of jobs needed (but in a gender neutral way).

dot_com_vet · Post by **dot_com_vet** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:52 am

Obsolescence of jobs is quickening. The F-16 fighter wing in my city is being replaced by robotic drones. There will still be jobs, but less of them.
I never thought in my lifetime thought I'd see technology change things so quickly.

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 3:00 am

I think the financial crisis has sped up the replacement of workers with technology. After the massive layoffs of 2008-2010, companies realized that they actually didn't need as many people as they thought they did.

Hoplite · Post by **Hoplite** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 3:31 am

An article tracing the evolution of the 40 hr. week and the reasons behind it, i.e., searching for the sweet spot of efficiency:

http://www.alternet.org/visions/154518/ ... age=entire
I don't know anyone aside from government workers who puts in only 40 hours. It makes me sadly recall a campaign button I saw from 100 years ago: "I'm for Wilson and the Five Day Week!"
And another article that details the decline in STEM employment as well:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... eport_says

prosaic · Post by **prosaic** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 4:10 am

jennypenny, in which class? Most minorities, immigrants, and lower-economic class families have always had more than 1 breadwinner.

EMJ · Post by **EMJ** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:34 am

About Time - Developing the case for a shorter working week
http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/2012/0 ... rking-week

MountainMan · Post by **MountainMan** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:52 am

The Swiss just voted against 6 weeks of vacation per year (it's at 4 weeks at the moment, although most employers give 5). I also hear it almost unanimously from my French collegues at work, they much prefer the Swiss official 42h working week and higher salaries to the 35h week in France. It seems that people prefer to face an increasing tax burden to pay for an increasing unemployment rate, in the vague hope that the average wage will somehow magically retain its current purchasing power.

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:31 am

@prosaic--I was talking about the class of people (and jobs) addressed in the article. I don't think the jobs the author refers to have ever been widely available to the lower classes you mentioned. They (the lower classes) have been stuck in menial, service, or under-the-table jobs that no one seems concerned about replacing or improving.

aussierogue · Post by **aussierogue** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:57 am

The question is too large to have a uniform answer...
Too many vested inerests and humans cannot look past our navals anyway..
So we get back to markets, cycles, evolution, tipping points etc
Eventually if too many people lose work then the lower classes will not be able to buy anything and the technology business will go bankrupt...people will storm the bastille and so it goes...
The key for us as individuals is to be able to ride out the various waves that will inevitably wash over us...and this question of technology vs jobs is another one. It will reach a tipping point.
how to cope?
For me ERE is part of it. The renaissance man is part of it...
To some this may sound defeatest but its the opposite.....there are some fights that cannot be won...

Surio · Post by **Surio** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:33 am

Hat-tip to Felix, I think it was he that first pointed to that Rushkoff link, last week in the journal thread.
Jacob wrote:

My dad suggested the solution was to reduce the number of working hours even if it meant lower business efficiency.
Ha! That's precisely the point I was raising in your journal last week as well. (I also linked to that Motherjones article in the thread).
Exhorting about "efficiency" is too reductionist a view (and relies on survivorship bias), when so many human beings are involved in the picture.
@aussierogue,

Dragline's comments on Jacob's original journal are well drawn out regarding your rhetorical questions.
@MountainMan,

As Obelix would say, "These Romans".... I mean, "These Swiss are Crazy"!

But based on my overall experience from the previous thread (Jacob's journal), the discussions here won't amount to much. One reason might be that, most of us secretly 'worship' the "efficiency machine" and are in awe of it.

JasonR · Post by **JasonR** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:18 pm

chenda · Post by **chenda** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:16 pm

@ JasonR - Thats exactly the flaw in it. Your just rationing diminishing labour demand and spreading it around more equitably, which may be politically attractive but does'nt really deal with the problem.
What matters are the real wages the worker is earning. Two people each doing half of one person's 40 hour shift, are each going to be half as rich as the guy who did the whole shift. You would have to double the real hourly rate to keep living standards the same. And its well known average real wages have stagnated in the United States since the 1970s, and elsewhere in the West.
On the otherhand, in the long term greater manufacturing automation may reduce costs to significantly lower consumer prices, which in turn might make a shorter working week more attractice and normal. Which is pretty much why ERE is viable today, as most goods are so much cheaper in real terms than in generations past.

Emanuel · Post by **Emanuel** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:45 pm

We are really close to machines surpassing humans in any given task. Just read about Watson. This is not a bad thing in itself. More leisure time and meaningful activities.
My optimistic opinion is that we are the pioneers of the future, where we don't have to do grunt work at all.

BeyondtheWrap · Post by **BeyondtheWrap** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:37 pm

The best solution I can see is to establish a citizen's income. That way, everyone would have enough to live, but the few who do work can live more luxuriously. Thoughts?

HeOfTheMountains · Post by **HeOfTheMountains** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:54 pm

"Citizen's Income" -- I doubt it would work well. It would encourage people to not work in favor of drawing a benefit, and those who do choose to work would bear the brunt of paying for the program.
Additionally, there would be pressure to increase the benefit to buy a better lifestyle that people are 'entitled' to. It would not stay where it is. It would bloat. What people are entitled to would be redefined upwards and upwards. And again, the few who would work would pay for it.
There is no free lunch. And people want free lunches. But somebody always pays for it.

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:05 am

Citizen's income DID work well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
It'll happen, but probably not in our lifetimes.