Robots and Social Equality: In Reason, Ronald Bailey concedes that “automation has taken over a lot of the routine physical and intellectual tasks that once were done by middle-income workers.” This has “resulted in a more polarized economy, where highly skilled workers in such fields as infotech and biotech are richly rewarded while a greater proportion of the workforce toil at relatively lower-paying service jobs.” [E.A.]
But don’t worry! The prosperity created by robotic achievements will lead to “a rising demand for services, involving non-routine tasks in which workers have a comparative advantage over machines—ones requiring interpersonal interaction, flexibility, adaptability, and problem-solving. ”
Like, what services, for example? Bailey cites MIT economist David Autor:
Work, he argues, is evolving away from assembly-line rigidity and back toward a more pre-industrial paradigm populated by “new artisans.” Perhaps more chefs will prepare fine meals in the homes of clients, dramatists devise elaborate virtual environments as entertainment, tailors create one-of-kind bespoke garments. [E.A.]
Hmm. Notice anything about these “pre-industrial” jobs? Maybe that at least two of the three involve a servile relationship to someone on the right side of the “more polarized economy”? One reason arguments like Bailey’s seem so sterile and unconvincing is that he (like many libertarians) doesn’t even consider that this might be a problem.
Maybe there’s an answer to this fear of servility, After all, some servants are upwardly mobile rather than self-effacing ( see: Affleck, Ben; nanny). And if everybody is providing artisanal services to everybody else, one man’s master one day can be his bespoke tailor the next. In theory. But it’s hard to see how a polarized economy produces that sort of universal hybrid part-time servility — especially when many people who have the skills to work effectively on an assembly line don’t have the skills for “adaptability and problem solving,” let alone sucking up to clients in their homes.
I say worry.
P.S.: And no, mass unskilled immigration won’t help.
Robots and Social Equality http://t.co/VLe4akqWqb
I’ve thought much the same thing. And a split between “servants” and “masters” would be toxic — so we have to embrace the ethic of service rather than despising it.
So is it that working for The Man feels better than working for a mere man (disalienation)? Will training in Facebook & Twitter in high school branding classes be of use for artisanal social engineering
@johndurant @ATabarrok Libertarians got weak ideas on what left half of IQ bell curve will do when robots take jobs http://t.co/qPQmUx7ukr
In the libertarian future, we all take turns being each others’ chefs and butlers!
Future Trend: Servility! http://t.co/FYmV29itU5
Yikes! Future Trend: Servility! http://t.co/pK3pHhHLD6
Income polarization will increase demand for servants. The new American Dream! http://t.co/C5marJSn0J
Future Trend: Servility! http://t.co/6TB3dRacSm
What if the only jobs left after the robots are … http://t.co/VLe4akqWqb
RT @kausmickey: A libertarian (characteristically) fails to come to grips with the real threat of automation … http://t.co/VLe4akqWqb
Everyone serves someone else. Perhaps you have a point, but if it is to be persuasive (to me anyway) you need to distinguish between the servility of a lawyer to a client (presumably ok) and that of a tailor to a client (presumably not ok).
Future Trend: Servility! #tcot http://t.co/m0d6J3V6m7
“After all, some servants are upwardly mobile rather than self-effacing ( see: Affleck, Ben; nanny).” http://t.co/x030jkeewV
@realDonaldTrump @AnnCoulter The Libertarians’ real “plan” for the middle class (hint: it’s not good) http://t.co/AU0Bjsgtxu @HowieCarrShow
@realDonaldTrump @HowieCarrShow and this http://t.co/AU0Bjsy4p2 @MarkSteynOnline https://t.co/6nbM8G2LUQ
An awfully strange thing to worry about, especially when there is no evidence of such a trend taking place.
We are not ever going to have 50 million artisans in America, which when we reach a population of 400 million by 2050 is about how many of those types of jobs that we’d need.
Even if we did, we wouldn’t have 50 million people with talent. You don’t have to be one in a million to be a chef or tailor but also the kind of work that not everybody can do.
Nobody knows what the common man or average person will do. All we know is that the number of jobs that we need for them will continue to decrease while the number of people like that will increase. And then of course there’s the problem what to do with those who are below average. That we are all to afraid to even imagine.
A constant flow of low skill immigration means a big pool of people who are just happy to be here, won’t make waves.
This isn’t even complicated.
[…] a lot with what Mickey Kaus has to say. In this case, though he has no idea who Fenster, it is Mickey Kaus who agrees with Fenster on the worrisome possibility of an emerging Downton […]
Automation could create more servant-type jobs: http://t.co/9p1ohSDzQh