I have wondered for some time, whether any think tanks or institutes were working on a vision of our future, post-employment. After all, we have known since the first mainframes that computers would take our jobs. I come to find out that it was always only a punch line to a joke. No one has developed a plan for a society without employment for our culture to shift into. So the joke is on us.
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I am going to make a prediction that I hope never comes true. At least, I hope I'm not here to see it. No, not the end of the world, or even the end of democracy, but the end of 'things' as we know them.
I make "things." So this prediction is not made lightly. I have made things for my entire working life, from making food on a restaurant line, drafting plats for engineers, designing magazines and brochures, coding websites and apps, and now handmade art-to-wear. I have been inside and outside the corporate world, and often in just the right place to see trends happen in slow motion.
I was fresh out of college when there were actual warnings that computers would take our jobs, it was discussed in newspaper articles and on talk shows. There were jokes, and smug contests like the Big Blue chess contest that Gary Kasparov lost, much to everyone's secret chagrin. But the economy was booming so we forgot to worry about it. And sure enough, one industry by one, jobs were eliminated and the ones that were left all went to Asia. So that prediction, while accurate, is incomplete. Those jobs, we think, are still ours by right.
And we say to ourselves, there are still jobs in healthcare, retail, food service. We just have to suck it up and take the lower pay scale to work at all. Yes, the word from the corporations is, there are still jobs here in the US. And, while the government changes it's flavor of lip service each administration, the outsourcing of our jobs will not end until US workers will accept starvation wages and poor working conditions. And we are halfway there.
Or, until there are enough high functioning computers and robots to do even those last few labor-intensive functions that corporations are so loathe to pay humans to do.
www.cnbc.com/… “Elon Musk says robots will push us to a universal basic income”
www.npr.org/… “Rise Of Artificial Intelligence Met With Mixed Reaction At SXSW”
Yes, jobs could easily come back to the US if Trump incents corporations to that tune. If he gives out corporate cash that will pay for the last few shovels of dirt that bury human labor as a valuable commodity, all the US corporate manufacturing will come home, but we won't be working for them.
It’s not just things that will disappear. Practically all our service jobs can be replaced to some degree by robotics. Fast food started life at an Automat, after all. All reasonably paid healthcare and social work jobs will go away when there is no funding from the government. Certainly, if the poor, sick and elderly don’t add to someone’s bottom line, they don’t matter as consumers. The last few holdout jobs will be paid at the lowest scale that Congress will consent to dribble out for us.
We already have cheap goods and a drastic reduction in choices - either fall-apart-yearly or high-end-luxury-(mostly)-well-made. Most of us are already buying at dollar and discount stores, warehouse clubs and the great Satan, Walmart. Soon quality will only be available to the billionaires and their millionaire underlings. Selling small moderate price goods in volume for pennies is much less profitable than selling big ticket items to rising niche markets of people who have money to spend.
And, in the end, selling companies or stock is so much cleaner and less troublesome than making things for people. What we are seeing in Washington now is a buying and selling of countries and their assets. If Russian sanctions are dropped, a handful of people will own part of Russia's oil industry. That's the market level that our leaders have in mind when they think of a 'free market.' That would also mean free of any responsibility to citizens, free of us entirely. If our existing economy shifts dramatically to take out the last human element, we don’t just lose a job, we lose a reason to get up in the morning, pride in one's work, seeing something grow that you are a part of. That will be the end of our shared community identity as we've known it since the Industrial Revolution, at least.
I don't make that statement idly. I have wondered for some time, whether any think tanks or institutes were working on a vision of our future, post-employment. After all, we have known since the first mainframes that computers would take our jobs. I come to find out that it was always only a punch line to a joke. No one has developed a plan for a society without employment for our culture to shift into. So the joke is on us.
The most that I have heard is a living stipend for all citizens, that has some good aspects and bad aspects. As in, there's really no plan there. What do people do all day? They can't possibly expect us to have real leisure time on a stipend, so what will we all do?
And factor in the decrease in public education, probably more lead and pipeline toxins in the water, more mental illness, more guns. Now add in added support for militarized policing and increased business for private prisons, more latitude for police and citizen killings. Trump is pushing all those forward as I write.
Will we be doing a lot of shopping in that environment? Will we be feathering our nest at West Elm or buying gourmet ingredients from local artisans? Are we filling our closet with new clothes or having dinner parties?
I can already tell you about the luxury market of things made by craft artists. The universal truth is that none of us can afford our own work. We have nice things if we are feeling flush enough to trade away our handmade work for someone else's. We are flush if there were enough people at a show who can drop a thousand bucks on something that has limited functional use in most cases. They are the ultimate "things", valued for their thing-ness. That group of buyers is thin on the ground in the US, other than the big cities where artists and anyone making less than 500K can't afford to live. I live in one of the few artist enclaves where the craft market is active and the cost of living is reasonable. But government is rapidly making changes to hobble the spending and traveling habits of 95% of the population. So rather quickly, I will have less and less of a future making things.
Here's the rest of the loss - big things, things that make our infrastructure. Unless a robot with AI can lay pavement, roads and bridges won't be built, repaired or maintained, because there's no profit in it and the government is now only there to make the lives of the "job creators" happy. Actually, I'm sure there is such a robot, but only Europe and Japan feel that their citizens are worth the expense. The US public infrastructure is already deteriorating from neglect, because politicians won’t pay for it. Travel will be difficult at best, expensive and dangerous at worst. Meanwhile, those who were shamed by Elizabeth Warren for having benefited from the public roads that led to their factories will have taken the hint. No workers, no roads. Voila. And the corporate heads have helicopters, jets and drones, so Nyah, Nyah, Nyah.
So let's recap. Jobs - going, going, gone. Government - in crisis, but heading towards corporate fascism. Everyone’s budget restricted to essentials like healthcare. Difficult travel conditions, bad roads, heavily policed air and train travel, more people staying at home. Public Education, air and water quality, civil rights enforcement, healthcare, and support for seniors are all ending in the foreseeable future. Like this month. Policing, violence and maligning minority groups on an uptick. Now.
No one is at the helm now to direct our future, because everyone is watching the circus. No one is parsing the effect on the people of this rapid shift of capital and public assets to the 1%. While dissent and resistance are healthy right now, we don't have leadership who sees the big picture.* The Democrats are certainly not addressing a future without employment; they know it's coming but are afraid to talk about it. ‘Bring back Jobs’ is way too handy as a political meme for anyone to admit that employment as a whole is a dead concept.
This is a dystopian vision, but if you can't see the way this is going, and has been for 50 years, then you may be surprised when you are laid off and replaced by AI. After all, an internet site random-lie-generator can do what KellyAnne Conway does. Why not your job?
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* Bernie Sanders is on point for the economics issues that I mention, supporting single payer healthcare, a living wage and a future living stipend:
“It does seem to be one of those rare ideas drawing support from both conservatives and liberals alike, and being that we stand to lose half of our jobs to automation within 20 years, it seems like an inevitable choice between technological unemployment causing great suffering or great liberation.”
However, he has never discussed a post-employment scenario either, and as an independent, he depends on a coalition with the Democrats to get anything accomplished.
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