The Luddites Were NOT Wrong!
27 01 13 - 09:08
This publicly distributed illustration from 1812 shows frame-breakers, or Luddites, smashing a loom. The Luddites were British textile artisans who 200 years ago smashed the mechanized looms they thought threatened their jobs. Machine-breaking was criminalized by the Parliament of the United Kingdom as early as 1721, but the Frame-Breaking Act 1812 made the death penalty available. (AP Photo)
Two centuries ago, ardent followers of King Ludd believed that the newest forms of technology arising around them had the power to kill off entire classes of workers. Back in their day, they were rebuffed, discounted, & arrested. Today's Luddites see the rapidly advancing abilities of computers combined with a relentless drive for corporate profits, have again led businesses to eliminate millions of workers through technology.
According to a recent AP analysis, most politicians & media wags have missed the connection between the dramatic rise in unemployment during this recession & its link to technology. Unlike the last recessions in 1991 & 2001, these jobs are not coming back as the economy recovers. While we vehemently oppose the practice, it's still convenient to blame the off-shoring of jobs to China for worker reductions in industries that are the backbone of the middle-class. However, the off-shoring of millions of jobs still only accounts for half of the of today's problem. The really, really scary part is that across Europe & North America, 15.1 million jobs in the $38k-$68k pay range, have simply vanished since the Great Recession started in JUN'08. So what happened to the rest of these jobs?
Remember those quaint quips & quotes from guys like Steve Jobs? "Computers will make our lives easier?" Or how those f'ked up Havard Economists promised us that a Service Economy will carry the US into the future? Or how about the nonsense that a Global Economy would work better than a regional one & insulate the US from the "boom & bust" cycle of economic downturns in the rest of the world? Bullshit artists, all of them!
The truth as we now know it, is that middle-class service sector jobs have been the 1st to be phased out by today's newest technology! The Great Recession of 2008 just accelerated the rate that these jobs are being lost. It's happening worldwide, no country will be spared, millions of service sector jobs are being obliterated by technology.
"The jobs that are going away aren't coming back," says Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of "Race Against the Machine." "I have never seen a period where computers demonstrated as many skills and abilities as they have over the past seven years." (AP)
Here's a few examples of jobs that have faded into the clouds of history:
Power looms supplanted artisan weavers in the 1800's.
Threshing machines drastically reduced farm laborers in the UK, creating riots before the turn of the century.
"Talkie" movies eliminated union musicians in theatres in the roaring 20's.
Automated cotton picking machines idled field workers in southern US plantations.
Early mechanical telephone systems pulled the plug on Switchboard operators after WW2.
Legions of secretaries/admins/accountants/travel agents/librarians & scores of others have been tossed by the new generation of "smart phones".
If 1.1m secretarial jobs can disappear in just the last decade (2000-2011), then we have to ask the question, who's next? It could be anyone of us. Truckers, cab drivers, & deliverymen should take a keen look at what Google & others are fiddling with lately. California just made it legal for "driverless" vehicles to maneuver the State's highways. The closer those vehicles get to everyday use, the more likely some of these jobs will begin to fade into history.
Perhaps the only folks that will be employed in the future are those stouthearted individuals that actually know how to make or fix something. You can't get a computer to repair your toilet or build you a home... yet.
Maybe those Luddites were just way ahead of their time....
To read more: Technology KILLS Jobs
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