"How the internet is making us poor" by Christopher Mims at Quartz

[applegrove]

How the internet is making us poor

by 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. It’s 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 Belgium’s University of Leuven.”

Economist Andrew McAfee, Brynjolfsson’s 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 agriculture—now it’s around 2%. At its peak, about a third of the US population was employed in manufacturing—now it’s 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]

1. Where is the discussion on the various ways the middle class is going to get to share in the wealth

created by computers? Europe is having it. Why not North America?

[peacebird]

2. Interesting, how does it work in Europe?

[applegrove]

4. They have partnerships between government, business, and unions. They have relationships

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]

3. Europe is not having it.

Stagnant no growth economies in most nations and almost all have higher unemployment than the U.S.

[applegrove]

5. All caused by right wing financial policies and dangerous lending practices in Spain, Italy,

Iceland and Cyprus.

[former9thward]

7. Every country in Europe is governed by right wingers?

Actually none are compared to what we call right wing. Many have social democratic governments. None of them are doing well.

[applegrove]

9. The banking deregulations were right wing thinking. Caused a worldwide crash.

Like the rich like: bubble and burst. Are you saying banking deregulation did not come out of the right?

[former9thward]

12. If you are talking about the repeal of Glass Steagall Act ...

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]

14. The Europeans are doing fine on the gini equality scale. That was my point. As to

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]

25. So now I am a "psychopath" and you "have something on me".

Ok. Got it.

[applegrove]

26. Politicos in the USA have been using the tools of the psychopath. I call it when I see it

happening in hopes that the discussion will return to one on the actual issues.

[applegrove]

17. Here is a good questions Europeans are asking. The right wing bankers got the people to bail them

out.

&feature=player_embedded

[Zax2me]

13. Europe is broken.

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]

6. mention this to some people and you get labled a " Luddite "

[former9thward]

8. I would call people who want to fight technology a 'Luddite".

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]

20. And ironically the historical Luddites arose due to new machinery...

...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. Technology eliminates jobs - but it doesn't make us poor

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]

11. The rich are getting so rich off of technology. How do we make sure the middle class

grows while this is going on. In the 20th century we did it via income taxes and unions.

[Newest Reality]

16. For some, yes ...

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]

15. Penny wise and pound foolish

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]

18. Work as currently defined is becoming obsolete... unfortunately the main economic and political

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]

19. Yeah, the people working in the buggy-whip factories are still upset. n/t

[1-Old-Man]

21. And the fewer workers required the less you have to pay those who survive the workforce

[limpyhobbler]

22. Good article. Really getting to an important point,

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]

23. So we create more product with less labor.. but (most of) us are poorer?

Gee, I wonder how that could be.

[Starry Messenger]

24. My friends in IT screamed at me that unions were obsolete.