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A few years from now we will both know, but I will bet plenty of people will still be predicting that the sky will fall. I will just go by history. The world has been through the industrial revolution. The US has seen many jobs end or greatly change due to computers. We have lost the majority of our manufacturing jobs. Agricultural and ranching jobs have vanished by the millions. Retailing jobs are vanishing and yet we have an oversupply of jobs and not enough people to work them. Even unskilled workers are in demand.
You are not likely to change your mind, but perhaps others will listen and not be unduly alarmed.
I don’t think the sky is falling. I simply believe technology advances are going to change the worlds economy in the not too distant future, and that we are woefully unprepared for it. I don’t think anyone (governments) really knows how to prepare for it. If we can’t figure it out, then yes, IMO it could be economically catastrophic. To say that’s impossible I think is folly. This doesn’t make me an alarmist or Chicken Little. People were most likely dismissed as such way back when they warned of the possible job losses when globalization was in its fledgling stages, too. But I think this will be different. And I really don’t think driverless cars and trucks nor delivery drones are nearly as far away as you do. I think progress is being made relatively quickly.
As I said before, change and transition was much slower in the past, and people were able to transition from a
Lost industry that didn’t require a formal education more easily because the jobs that replaced them also were blue collar jobs that didn’t require a formal education.
Where are all these high skilled engineering jobs that employers are clamoring to fill. I seriously want to know as I will start calling them to see if my resume is a good fit.
I don't think employers seeking highly skilled people are going to be interested in someone who can't figure out how to search for jobs.
So when this comes true in a 100 percent factory driven by robots, what going to happen to the people who need to work? ( not everybody cut out to work in the tech industry) Business need people not machines?
Yet, even as automation increases, unemployment is reaching record lows. So, no, Marx didn't anticipate a damned thing.
Yet, even as automation increases, unemployment is reaching record lows. So, no, Marx didn't anticipate a damned thing.
He predicted both globalization and automation 160 years ago, so yeah, his predictions are coming to pass at least to some level. We are just at the beginning stages of this after all.
I don’t think we can go purely by unemployment numbers. The gap between wealthy and poor is never been wider and the middle class is rapidly disappearing. The jobs people have are not as well paying as they used to be. The unemployment numbers do not distinguish between those who are working only part-time jobs because that is all they can find, Nor does it count those who have stopped collecting unemployment and still can’t find work. All you have to do is go to work in employment to see how many people are still struggling with finding a job. The people I know who have been working all this time and were struggling 3 years ago continue to struggle.
I am not a Marxist nor a communist but come on you got to give the guy some credit for being ahead of his time in terms of these predictions made when people still got from place to place on horses.
He was 100% wrong about Communisms unfolding. It has brought nothing but sorrow and misery.
Well, that’s not the topic. You can be right about some predictions while still being wrong on others. Communism is a failure, but that does not mean workers won’t ever become obsolete in an automated Capitalist economy. You can be a Capitalist while still acknowledging it too has flaws and must be prepared for a future world we are only beginning to imagine the possibilities of.
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I don’t think we can go purely by unemployment numbers. The gap between wealthy and poor is never been wider and the middle class is rapidly disappearing. The jobs people have are not as well paying as they used to be. The unemployment numbers do not distinguish between those who are working only part-time jobs because that is all they can find, Nor does it count those who have stopped collecting unemployment and still can’t find work. All you have to do is go to work in employment to see how many people are still struggling with finding a job. The people I know who have been working all this time and were struggling 3 years ago continue to struggle.
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Again I disagree with virtually all of your opinions. I call them opinions because that is all they are. You opinions are not supported by the facts.
Here are some facts that go beyond opinion.
In the early years of the industrial revolution, there were extremely wealthy titans of industry. The wealth concentrated in the hands of a few was every bit as great as today. When Rockefeller died he alone was worth 1.5% of the US economy. That is 4x the equivalent of Bill Gates. There were plenty of other extremely wealth titans: JP Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Ford, Astor. Their holdings were dwarfed by some of the examples of antiquity including the Caesars, Genghis Khan, emporors of China, Akbar of India, etc, etc. In fact common men and women have never had a higher proportion of wealth than we have had in the US.
The skilled and education workers of the middle class are currently doing quite well. There are well over 60 million Americans living in households making 6 figures or more. That number has been growing even with our stagnant economy.
The jobs people now have a paying every bit as well as in the past. There is one piece of data and a chart that has been widely publicized. It shows little GROWTH in "real" incomes of the majority of Americans. If you believe the data we have the same relative standard of living now as 40 years ago.
Anyway the relative wages have NOT dropped. They have just not grown well. Personally I think the data is clearly misleading. Over the past 40 years houses have gotten bigger, cars have gotten better, families own more cars, more electronics and more of everything.
All of your complaints about the accuracy of a single unemployment measure are well, well known. People come and go from the workplace for a variety of reasons. Some people who want to be employed end up as contract employees. Others work part time. Others work in jobs that do not pay as well as they would like. Nothing is new about this. The BLS has tried to provide the most comprehensive data possible. They provide several measures of unemployment. They track people getting jobs, leaving jobs, working part time. They track vacant positions. They track by gender, occupation, location, etc, etc, etc. By all measures we are at historic lows for unemployment.
It seems to me these issues are extremely complicated. Trying to understand the facts is a lot more valuable than just unsupported, doom and gloom opinions.
Again I disagree with virtually all of your opinions. I call them opinions because that is all they are. You opinions are not supported by the facts.
Here are some facts that go beyond opinion.
In the early years of the industrial revolution, there were extremely wealthy titans of industry. The wealth concentrated in the hands of a few was every bit as great as today. When Rockefeller died he alone was worth 1.5% of the US economy. That is 4x the equivalent of Bill Gates. There were plenty of other extremely wealth titans: JP Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Ford, Astor. Their holdings were dwarfed by some of the examples of antiquity including the Caesars, Genghis Khan, emporors of China, Akbar of India, etc, etc. In fact common men and women have never had a higher proportion of wealth than we have had in the US.
The skilled and education workers of the middle class are currently doing quite well. There are well over 60 million Americans living in households making 6 figures or more. That number has been growing even with our stagnant economy.
The jobs people now have a paying every bit as well as in the past. There is one piece of data and a chart that has been widely publicized. It shows little GROWTH in "real" incomes of the majority of Americans. If you believe the data we have the same relative standard of living now as 40 years ago.
Anyway the relative wages have NOT dropped. They have just not grown well. Personally I think the data is clearly misleading. Over the past 40 years houses have gotten bigger, cars have gotten better, families own more cars, more electronics and more of everything.
All of your complaints about the accuracy of a single unemployment measure are well, well known. People come and go from the workplace for a variety of reasons. Some people who want to be employed end up as contract employees. Others work part time. Others work in jobs that do not pay as well as they would like. Nothing is new about this. The BLS has tried to provide the most comprehensive data possible. They provide several measures of unemployment. They track people getting jobs, leaving jobs, working part time. They track vacant positions. They track by gender, occupation, location, etc, etc, etc. By all measures we are at historic lows for unemployment.
It seems to me these issues are extremely complicated. Trying to understand the facts is a lot more valuable than just unsupported, doom and gloom opinions.
I don’t wNt yo argue with you, as I said we will never agree. I was responding to other posters. Of course you are free to comment, but it is no longer necessary for you to point out that you do not agree with me I know this already.
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