Unemployment is currently rife globally and this is something we all just blindly accept as being “the way things are” and we make an instant assumption that “things will improve”. While this may have been true 20 years ago the reality we face now is very different due to the development of the human race technologically. I’m sure you have all seen the implementation of the electronic cashier in supermarkets, robotics replacing humans in the manufacturing process of goods and advanced software starting to remove the need for office staff. These are just a few examples of technology replacing the need for humans in the workplace.
As we continue to see huge unemployment figures around the world it is difficult to see where jobs are going to be created to help support the global capitalist system. If we take the UK for example the majority of people are now employed in the service sector, even in this economic sector we are beginning to see technology remove the need for people. There is a belief in the UK that the “Credit Crunch” is the cause of all our problems and that it is because of this that the unemployment rate is so high. I would argue that that is only one of the issues regarding the faltering economy, as we progress technologically jobs are lost as firms are able to adopt a new technology for a fraction of the cost that would be incurred if people were employed to complete the same task. You don’t have to give a new piece of technology sick pay, holiday, lunch breaks, a salary or any of the other benefits you have to provide people.
I’m a firm believer that technology empowers the human race, it opens up our minds to accomplish incredible feats and provides us with tools to create amazing things. However, the downside of technology is that due to the capitalist system we are all part of the aim of the game is to cut costs and maximise profits, so as mere mortals we are easily replaceable. In 10 years I believe that almost any job from cleaner to stockbroker will be automated by robots, advanced software or whatever technology is required. If this is the case you can expect the unemployment rate of countries in the developed world to continue rising.
As you’ve probably noticed with this idea of technology replacing humans in the workplace there is a giant paradox. For a capitalist system to work people need to submit to employment to raise income, this income is then used to buy goods from firms, and for a firm to produce goods they need to employ people to ensure their production levels are able to meet demand. By removing people from this process and replacing them with technology the people will be unable to raise the income needed to buy goods from the firms. As a result of this demand will fall for the products and the whole system collapses as there is no one to buy the products or services. Technological unemployment by its very nature exposes the fundamental flaws in the capitalist system and as our technology continues to advance at a rapid pace we will see fewer and fewer people in work. As an example, new RFID technology is set to revolutionise the service process in supermarkets and will potentially remove a huge percentage of the number of people required for these supermarket chains to operate. We would be talking about millions of jobs globally under threat by new technologies.
It isn’t just supermarkets that are beginning to remove the need for human service, it is also becoming apparent that waiters and waitresses could soon be competing with technology to keep their jobs. With new technology being adopted by restaurants that allows customers to order from their table using an electronic device it is clear to see the number of people required to run a restaurant successfully will be massively reduced. One argument against this is that the cost to incorporate the new technologies will put businesses off, but in reality if you’re employing a staff of 8 waiters/waitresses the annual cost of this is very large indeed. Implementing technology will cost a fraction of the annual wage bill and is a simple one-off payment. How many millions of people are employed by restaurants and eateries around the world that could potentially be replaced by technology? It is staggering to think of how many jobs could easily be eradicated.
I’ve given two examples of service industries that are being revolutionised by technology, the truth is almost every industry is likely to experience the same kind of technological progression. As humans we simply can’t compete with machines, they beat us on nearly all fronts. Many people will say that machines can’t give the personal touch, but how many firms will be able to realistically afford the personal touch in an industry dominated by technology. Technology is more efficient, cheaper and easier to get rid of if it’s no longer required. How can a capitalist system work when technology progresses at the rate that it does, the majority of tasks can now be automated and this removes the need for us to complete these jobs. I believe that as technology continues to develop a new approach will have to be adopted globally. Capitalism simply doesn’t work when technology surpasses the abilities of humans, and believe me that reality isn’t far away.
What are your thoughts on this idea of technological unemployment? Do you believe this is reality or is it just the ramblings of a crazy person? Do you see your job being automated in the future? Do you believe technology can really replace humans in the workplace? If you have any thoughts or ideas I would love to hear them and really get this discussion going.
21 Comments
Great topic. For more info on this there’s a free ebook “The Lights in the Tunnel” by Martin Ford http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/LIGHTSTUNNEL.PDF and definitely do more research into Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project.
The lights in the tunnel is a OK reference to the future potential of computing processing power but I would not recommend for a ZM or VP enthusiast as its love for the mass market and free market system. The first few pages killed the book for me when Martin Ford commented on the “billion” lights in the tunnel and the 5 billion outside the tunnel. 5 billion outside the mass market and living/working is poor conditions? Thats it scope on the world the rest is about who will buy the mass market products if the labnour market is reduced. Someone needs to send this guy a link to VP/ZM. I found it a lilttle frustrating and very capitalist.
Have you heard of The Venus Project?
Yes, I am a big believer in the work of The Venus Project. Jacque Fresco is a true visionary. The only thing I would say is that The Venus Project and a Resource Based Economy provide us with a goal to aim for. It is the transition period in between we need to start talking about because it is more relevant than ever. I believe we’re close to a huge change globally. Watch this space.
Josh – May I have your email or would you contact me via email? I am working with a few individuals within the Zeitgeist Movement to develop a nonprofit aeroponics facility, which we intend to spread throughout the world via the 1000+ chapters in the movement. Unfortunately, none of us have any experience or knowledge in the areas of business and law and it would be a great help, as well as making the transition a lot smoother, since, with my design, between 10,000 to 20,000 people could be fed on one acre of land, before vertical farming techniques are applied, if you would help guide us in this area.
My presumption is that 90% of the jobs available to workers have been usurped by machines. The percentage may be as high as 98%. In 1950 a huge number of women took an interest in paid employment. Yet the staggeringly larger population today is mostly (80%) able to find work. There have been times in my life of major social readjustment to new kinds of work and mothballing of old skills. I note that today the pace of forced readjustment is faster and so more conscious, but I wouldn’t say it’s headed into exhausting the creative possibilities of human offering to the market.
From my own experience in developing IT systems, the result from efficiencies gained is always an increase in the services offered rather than reductions in staff. The jobs don’t diminish, but they do change over time and there is always a lag in retraining or finding new people with the required skill sets.
Also, consider that if you consume less, you can afford to work less. Growth is unsustainable. If we all weren’t so keen to feed the capitalist machine, our lives could be so much richer…
One of the arguments in the UK is that due to the prolonged recession consumer spending habits have been altered. As people had to tighten their budgets they have discovered they can have a similar quality of life by spending a lot less. There have been some good comments here arguing the idea of technological employment, definitely some food for thought. My argument however would be that technology is advancing to a stage where even complex jobs that have normally required thought and decision making can now be done by computers (such as stockbroking), this trend will only continue.
Thanks for posting your thoughts.
I am a ZM member and VP foot soldier currently at uni on a business admin degree. The potenital to reduce labour in my workplace is staggering. The barriers are cross organisation co-operation, a poor insight into the benefits of standardisation. Once something is digital it should stay digital, rather than printing and entering into a different system. Alot of admin jobs could be reduced if sources where standardised, documents coverted to excel to upload onto another system. This is also a transitional context as in the future the potenital is increased further by cross-organisational processes which are supported by Info management systems which link in with processes and operational systems.
Thanks for your reply. The way I see it we are nearing the end of the current wave of technology. Computers, laptops, the internet and many other digital technologies have changed the way we work and also removed many jobs from the economy. The next wave of technology which we’re beginning to see with the development of robotics and nanotechnology has the potential to remove almost every job. This is just one aspect of failing economies however. I’ll soon be writing an article on the changing population talking about baby boomers and the prolonged life expectancy. We’re on the cusp of a major change, there has to be one, simple as that. It is what the change will be that is the most interesting question.
I think that semi- Artificial intelligence will come into effect before Nano-Tech and really tak a huge slice of the labour market. China wont get a change to become a superpower as the west will build better automated factories and supply lines. I does feel like times are changing and the old ways of working and society in general is not so confident in itself.
I finished reading lights in the tunnel, it was insightful and well written. Although I did tire of human beings just being reffered to as cusumers. The tunnel is the world, but the world is much more than a market place! I am half way through macrowikinomics which is also very intresting. This book is very forward thinking, I cant actually put it into words. In a nutshell the printing press changed the world, now the internet is an evolution of that and will have similar effects which are only now just being realised. Old post industrial top down institutions slow to change will cling to the old system while great ideas exist on the fringes of society shared by the net. Highly Recommended.
[...] Part 1 – Retail May 23, 2011By Josh Hunt Share I recently wrote an article titled Technological Unemployment and after a mixed response I decided that I would do a series of articles based on how various [...]
Josh, Excellent topic. I am a fan of the motivation, work ethic, and productivity capitalism creates in individuals. I also see how 6billion employees will not be needed to produce the goods and services for 10billion people (incl seniors and kids) in the future with technological improvements.
More examples of technological unemployment today:
- Neflix: 2100 employees and soon to layoff in thier distribution centers not to mention the USPS jobs that will be lost after Netflix goes 100% streaming. Netflix will layoff, their revenues increase, and their overhead will drop. This may result in skyrocketing revenue per employee ratio to over $2million/employee.
- Blockbuster: going out of business largely because of Netflix’s 2000 employees (and ZERO storefronts). At Blockbusters peak, they employed over 60,000 employees. If you count all the property owners/managers, building maintenance employees, and construction employees who Blockbuster enriched with their storefronts, the number of supported employees was much larger.
- USPS: being replaced by email and internet ads
- McDonalds: now over 400,000 employees but will implement cashier and possibly cooking automation if the minimum wage is increased,
- WalMart of course which now employs over 2million if RFID and inventory automation is implemented given another rise in minimum wage.
- even software engineers who used to provide individual solutions for many embedded applications such as cell phones and other portable devices may soon be replaced by automated code generators on the 3 or 4 software platforms: MS, Apple/MacOs, Linux, and Google platforms.
The question is how we get politicians to start paying attention to this issue and start discussing ways to ‘refine’ capitalism to not only provide a livelyhood for all, but also keep dreams alive to everyone no matter of socioeconomic background? How do we motivate 10billion individuals to be productive in a machine driven society of the future?
The problem can be seen if you extrapolate the royalties paid to the owners of newer technology and technology patents (who are rarely the inventors or engineers). This will soon overpower the middle class since tech solutions will more easily replace middle class jobs and increase the rich/middle class gap.
How do we motivate individuals to work and invent that aren’t born into money? Lets assume welfare never works from the countless socialist experiements world wide (Russia, N.Korea, Greece, etc).
Ideas anyone?
Here are a couple ideas to artificially reduce the workforce with a big carrot if you lead a productive life:
- Early retirement based on work success. Yes, i know, Greece tried it but didnt get world wide buy in which is key…
- Lower hours per work week as determined by an efficiency rating, again world wide enforcement is key
“Efficiency rating”: Enforce a WORLD WIDE rule to artificially limit weekly work hours to 40hrs divided by an efficiency factor for EMPLOYEES. However, if you are critical to a project or you started a new business and need to work OT, you could work OT ONLY IF you own a significant portion of the company. This will keep dreams alive.
But back to the efficiency rating: Lets assume the technology requires only 3billion jobs to produce goods and services for all 7billion people in the world. However, 4billion able bodied people are available to work, the factor becomes 4/3 and the work hours are reduced for EVERYONE, WORLDWIDE by a third, to 30hrs/week, forcing companies to hire more people and pay more beni’s. This would also allow work weeks to go up if large inefficiencies are created by running out of fossil fuel for example.
The goal here would be let the free market set the salaries, but pass the successes efficiency creates to all families so they can spend more time training their kids to become productive, responsible adults.
Are there any other sites that discuss potential economic solutions to technological unemployment?
In my experience people tend to be labelled conspiracy theorists for talking about technological unemployment. The truth is you can see the effects of technological unemployment everywhere. It is very interesting what you’ve been saying regarding goods and services. I think we can go deeper and say that soon you’ll only need 1 billion people to supply the goods and services needed by the entire planet.
In terms of goods, we now buy devices such as iPads and smartphones that fill many of our requirements, requirements that we used to have to buy many products for. With a reduction in the number of products we need to buy due to the multifunctional nature of devices now, there is no need to produce so many goods, meaning there are fewer jobs, and those jobs that do exist are quickly becoming automated. Foxconn is a great example of this.
Technological unemployment is very inconvenient for the governments of the world because they’re all trying to maintain a dead social system. Capitalism is being kept on life support for the sake of the system itself. To me there isn’t a cure for technological unemployment, it is simply a sign that the human race is advancing very quickly. The wrong questions are being asked in regard to the global economy, we should be trying to move on as a race, not taking a step backwards to try and maintain our own dead system.
In terms of motivation I don’t believe that money or capitalism is required to motivate people. After all you felt motivated enough to write a long comment about something you’re clearly interested in and passionate about. I don’t believe people are only motivated to do something because they get paid. I play the guitar, I write a blog, I like to surf. I’m not motivated to do these things because I get paid, I do these things because I’m passionate about them and enjoy them. Are scientists driven to work in the science field because of the money? I’m sure they’re not. It has to be about more than financial gain.
Anyway, thanks for the comment. It has been very interesting reading your point of view.
[...] in order to stay competitive, will replace their workers with machines. This natural process of technological unemployment will eventually need to be addressed in a new [...]
I have been trying to come up with a “fool-proof” explanation of why technological unemployment is real and inevitable. The closest I have come is the argument that time available for consumption is constant while time necessary for production of consumed goods and services is ever decreasing.
Consider billionaires. Even if they wanted to they could not spend all their money on consuming goods and services because they simply do not have the time to do so.
Now consider new technologies like digitization and the Internet. Goods can be purchased online, we can stream video, we spend lots of time on services like Facebook which just employs a few thousand people.These all have a very high consumption time vs production time ratio.
The argument goes that as technology advances we will come up with new products and services that will create new jobs in new industries. However if we are going by by what has happened up till now, the “time spent consuming vs time spent producing” ratio will be ever increasing also for these new services. At best they will just shift people’s consumption patterns from one sector to another since time available for consumption is a hard limit and more consumption time spent on a new service means less spent on an existing one.
Here are some additional resources relating to technological employment:
“Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy” by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The Kindle edition of this book is available for $3.99 from Amazon. The authors are two MIT economists.
“The Second Economy” by W. Brian Arthur https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_second_economy_2853.
“Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software” by John Markoff http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all.
According to Brynjolfsson and McAfee, nearly 1 in 12 people working in sales in America lost their job in the “great recession”. They attribute part of this loss to kiosks and vending machines and online sales. I see online sales as much more significant than kiosks and vending machines. It is hard to know how much of this job loss can be attributed to changes in technology.
I see the loss of jobs in sales as especially significant since many people with less education are employed in this sector. According to Brynjolfsson and McAfee, over the past 40 years wages for those with a high school degree have fallen, for those with some college have stagnated, for those with a college degree have gained. Most of the people with good analytical and creative skills will adapt to new technology, but I foresee increasing unemployment and lower wages for a growing number of people who cannot adapt quickly enough.
[...] Unemployment; blog http://thefuturist.co/technological-unemployment Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in [...]
There is still a tremendously under-developed world globally that will demand labor and existing skills. Right now terrorism and border boundaries is a bigger issue to global expansion that the invention of robots. Drug wars should be grouped with the global terrorism threat.
Higher education in new technology always has the potential to keep capitalism moving right along. Until we’re zipping between galaxies and you can have a pizza brought to you by pure thought alone, we got a lot of room to expand and profit! The US and GB are both falling behind the east in math and science. But even that is not so much a problem as an effect of accumulated wealth that results in complacent society. It’ll change when enough people are hurting. And yes, we’ll probably have a war or two, or riots, mass homeless, perhaps a plague even. But, we are truly no more advanced today than the bronze age, in the grand scheme of things.
Now, if governments don’t set futuristic goals and concern themselves more with conservative goals then they will hurt hoards of people eventually. People that want jobs need to be voting for candidates that want spaceships, teleporters and energizers.
With all that said, we’re do for a world war, a plague, a major shift in climate and they all, if they happen, will kill millions or more people, but as history goes, that’s normal!
It’s the darkest times that sober up the survivors and motivates them to do new things to survive.
I’ll be happy to nicely debate all this if you wish, but communism is a long way off, IF it’s even possible. Which you seem to argue in favor of without saying it.
Matt Ramsey
Sent from my iPhone
[...] As you’ve probably noticed with this idea of technology replacing humans in the workplace there is a giant paradox. For a capitalist system to work people need to submit to employment to raise income, this income is then used to buy goods from firms, and for a firm to produce goods they need to employ people to ensure their production levels are able to meet demand. By removing people from this process and replacing them with technology the people will be unable to raise the income needed to buy goods from the firms. As a result of this demand will fall for the products and the whole system collapses as there is no one to buy the products or services. Technological unemployment by its very nature exposes the fundamental flaws in the capitalist system and as our technology continues to advance at a rapid pace we will see fewer and fewer people in work. As an example, new RFID technology is set to revolutionise the service process in supermarkets and will potentially remove a huge percentage of the number of people required for these supermarket chains to operate. We would be talking about millions of jobs globally under threat by new technologies. Read More:http://thefuturist.co/technological-unemployment [...]
This is indeed a paradox and the ultimate flaw that will end capitalism as we know it. Dan Thomas (“Death by Technology”) definitely has the best take and ideas I’ve seen on this subject. He says we have to liberate the work force. Everyone else is still thinking in conventional terms like taxes and so forth. OsiXs is really sounding the alarm on Technological unemployment. They have a link to this actual article. This is how I found out about it OsiXs on Facebook:
“Hold everything and stop what you’re doing until you understand this –
“We Are Free!”
http://WeAreFree.osixs.org”
Kind of glad someone seems to know what’s really going on. I like the idea of a 15 to 20 hour work week 2 or 3 days a week with 3 months vacations. Have we really come that far and we’re just too stupid to know it.