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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"How the internet is making us poor" by Christopher Mims at Quartz
How the internet is making us poorby Christopher Mims at Quartz
http://qz.com/67323/how-the-internet-made-us-poor/
"SNIP..........................................
Sixty percent of the jobs in the US are information-processing jobs, notes Erik Brynjolfsson, co-author of a recent book about this disruption, Race Against the Machine. Its safe to assume that almost all of these jobs are aided by machines that perform routine tasks. These machines make some workers more productive. They make others less essential.
The turn of the new millennium is when the automation of middle-class information processing tasks really got under way, according to an analysis by the Associated Press based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Between 2000 and 2010, the jobs of 1.1 million secretaries were eliminated, replaced by internet services that made everything from maintaining a calendar to planning trips easier than ever. In the same period, the number of telephone operators dropped by 64%, travel agents by 46% and bookkeepers by 26%. And the US was not a special case. As the AP notes, Two-thirds of the 7.6 million middle-class jobs that vanished in Europe were the victims of technology, estimates economist Maarten Goos at Belgiums University of Leuven.
Economist Andrew McAfee, Brynjolfssons co-author, has called these displaced people routine cognitive workers. Technology, he says, is now smart enough to automate their often repetitive, programmatic tasks. We are in a desperate, serious competition with these machines, concurs Larry Kotlikoff, a professor of economics at Boston University. It seems like the machines are taking over all possible jobs.
Like farming and factory work before it, the labors of the mind are being colonized by devices and systems. In the early 1800?s, nine out of ten Americans worked in agriculturenow its around 2%. At its peak, about a third of the US population was employed in manufacturingnow its less than 10%. How many decades until the figures are similar for the information-processing tasks that typify rich countries post-industrial economies?
...........................................SNP"
applegrove
(118,642 posts)created by computers? Europe is having it. Why not North America?
peacebird
(14,195 posts)applegrove
(118,642 posts)written into law. In the US, unions and government are under attack. The democrats need to highlight the relationships between all and not fall into the GOP trap of arguing for unions or government. Once you argue for something you give legitimacy to the other side's stance that it should be argued against. It is complete bullshit that government is evil. It is complete bullshit that union's existence in the USA should be under attack. Sure if unions are asking for over the top compensation the government or business should negotiate. The GOP has delegitimized both unions and government to many in the USA. All the while places like Singapore and Germany forge new relationships to ensure a healthy economy well into the future.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Stagnant no growth economies in most nations and almost all have higher unemployment than the U.S.
applegrove
(118,642 posts)Iceland and Cyprus.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Actually none are compared to what we call right wing. Many have social democratic governments. None of them are doing well.
applegrove
(118,642 posts)Like the rich like: bubble and burst. Are you saying banking deregulation did not come out of the right?
former9thward
(31,997 posts)That occurred with Bill Clinton. If you are calling him part of a worldwide right wing group then no further discussion can be had. You are really moving the goal posts. You originally said Europe was doing fine. I pointed out they are not. Now you have them in a world wide banking conspiracy.
applegrove
(118,642 posts)banking deregulation are you really saying it is not a right wing idea? That right wing ideas and a banking crisis is not the cause of economic woe in Europe right now? Deregulations? Really? I know Bill Clinton did in G/S. He was taking ideas generated by the right. No? Are you going to call me a conspiracist (which I reject and which you know I would seeing as how you use the technique called stereotyping to get me to change my behaviour, a technique used by psychopaths to control people.....why do you want to control me? What have I on you that makes me so scary that I must be controlled?)? I must be very powerful with my ideas to get you to behave so. Does that mean the right really is engaging in misdirection by making the debate about the legitimacy of government or unions rather that proactive relationships between business, government and unions?
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Ok. Got it.
applegrove
(118,642 posts)happening in hopes that the discussion will return to one on the actual issues.
applegrove
(118,642 posts)out.
Zax2me
(2,515 posts)The days of 'well, in Europe they are so ahead of us'.
No.
They are broke and out of money.
Whatever model they used correct thing would be to NOT do it.
olddots
(10,237 posts)former9thward
(31,997 posts)But I also recognize the problem technology causes as outlined in the OP. It is just no one, and I mean no one, knows what to do about it so they say nothing.
JHB
(37,160 posts)...letting employers throw skilled workers to the wolves. No "safety net" programs in the England of precisely two centuries ago.
It was, at root, an unaddressed labor issue that led to smashing machinery.
bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)Though the uncertainty of it isn't much fun for plenty of people.
In material goods we are much richer than people were 200 years ago; much much richer than people 100 years ago; and richer still than people were in the 60's and 70's. Just as a quick example - look at the difference in the size of the houses we live in, along with the difference in the number of people living in an average house, then consider how many people back then had to rent storage units to keep the stuff they couldn't fit in their house?
Technology makes it cheap to manufacture very large quantities of stuff.
Of course, there's much more to life than stuff, and most people would rather have a decent job than a houseful of stuff...
applegrove
(118,642 posts)grows while this is going on. In the 20th century we did it via income taxes and unions.
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)using "we" is a rather broad brush, perhaps?
That "we" seems to be downgrading and dissolving and so, there are those of us who are already without a house, home, or stuff to store, and there are those who are getting closer to that reality.
That's not "much richer" for growing swaths of people and we need to reckon with distribution of profit and wealth as productivity goes up, technology increases and automation improves to a point where the situation will only worsen economically for more people.
The gains have been turning into loses for larger numbers what with flat wages and more part-time and temp work as well as increases in service sector employment.
This could be solvable, but it would take a drastic and radical change in how we view work, income and distribution of the results of productivity, which seems to go in the opposite direction of the "rugged individualist" and libertarian styles of the Right.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)on the part of many of these companies. As to the decrease in bookkeepers of 26%, this is something I can speak of.
I work in accounting, and have worked at CPA firms. These CEO's who decide to get rid of bookkeepers who know accounting for some clerk who can use Quickbooks to print the checks end up paying dearly for this. The work done by the much higher paid accountants to clean up all the messes and disasters is much more expensive than if they just hired a good bookkeeper.
But you can't tell them that.
I think the same can be said for the secretaries and receptionists and phone operators.
JCMach1
(27,556 posts)forces in the 20th century (modern capitalism and communism) operate on the idea of unit labor as key component of their philosophy.
We don't yet have a politics to deal with the fact that labor is no longer needed...
So far, the answer in the capitalist countries is concentrate more wealth in the hands of those that already have great wealth. They are the ones reaping the benefit of cutting loose all of those information and industrial workers.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)that I don't hear to much about in the public conversation. Maybe not very exciting, but very sort of a critical question for what's going on.
RedCappedBandit
(5,514 posts)Gee, I wonder how that could be.