“Most employees have an over-inflated opinion of their own work and work ethic. Rare is the person who would admit to slacking, yet if you look around your workplace, you are surrounded by people who can barely make drinkable coffee, nevermind do the job at hand.”
America Has Hit “Peak Jobs”
“The middle class is being hollowed out,” says James Altucher. “Economists are shifting their attention toward a […] crisis in the United States: the significant increase in income inequality,” reports the New York Times.
Think all those job losses over the last five years were just caused by the recession? No: “Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market,” according to an AP report on how technology is killing middle-class jobs.
When I was growing up in Canada, I was taught that income distribution should and did look like a bell curve, with the middle class being the bulge in the middle. Oh, how naïve my teachers were. This is how income distribution looks in America today:
That big bulge up above? It’s moving up and to the left. America is well on the way towards having a small, highly skilled and/or highly fortunate elite, with lucrative jobs; a vast underclass with casual, occasional, minimum-wage service work, if they’re lucky; and very little in between.
But it won’t be 19th century capitalism redux, there’ll be no place for neo-Marxism. That underclass won’t control the means of production. They’ll simply be irrelevant.
Why? Technology. Especially robots. The Atlantic is already wringing its hands over “The End of Labor: How to Protect Workers From the Rise of Robots.” These days robots are in factories everywhere–but soon enough they’ll be doing plenty of service jobs too. Meanwhile, software is eating white-collar jobs.
Well, at least the newly unemployed can still go flip burgers…oh, wait, robots are doing that, too. (And other machines can print the meat. No, really.) No wonder people with jobs increasingly feel they have to work harder and longer.
Of course the robot manufacturers dispute this characterization. “While automation may transform the workforce and eliminate certain jobs, it also creates new kinds of jobs that are generally better paying and that require higher-skilled workers,” says the NYT.
That’s true, and the usual retort to this kind of Luddism. But what if, as I’ve been saying for more than a year, technology is now destroying jobs faster than it’s creating them? What if America has hit peak jobs?
Here’s your answer: that’s a good thing…in the long run. Job loss isn’t actually a problem in and of itself. Instead it’s a symptom of something much larger.
Step back a minute. Way back. What precisely is the purpose of technological innovation? Why do we want to make things faster, smarter, better, healthier, new? To get rich? OK: to generate wealth, and ultimately, eliminate scarcity. The endgame, where we’re going as a species if we don’t screw up badly and destroy ourselves or burn out all our resources before we get there, is some kind of post-scarcity society.
Will people have jobs in a post-scarcity society? No. That’s what post-scarcity means. They’ll have things to do, authorities, responsibilities, ambitions, callings, etc., but not jobs as we understand them. So if the endgame is a world without jobs, how will we get there? All at once? No: by a slow and inexorable decline of the total number of jobs. Today’s America is just at the edge, the very beginning, of that decline.
Trouble is, America, more than any other nation, is built around the notion that all able-bodied adults should have jobs. That’s going to be a big problem.
Paul Kedrosky recently wrote a terrific essay about what I call cultural technical debt, i.e. “organizations or technologies that persist, largely for historical reasons, not because they remain the best solution to the problem for which they were created. They are often obstacles to much better solutions.” Well, the notion that ‘jobs are how the rewards of our society are distributed, and every decent human being should have a job’ is becoming cultural technical debt.
If it’s not solved, then in the coming decades you can expect a self-perpetuating privileged elite to accrue more and more of the wealth generated by software and robots, telling themselves that they’re carrying the entire world on their backs, Ayn Rand heroes come to life, while all the lazy jobless “takers” live off the fruits of their labor. Meanwhile, as the unemployed masses grow ever more frustrated and resentful, the Occupy protests will be a mere candle flame next to the conflagrations to come. It’s hard to see how that turns into a post-scarcity society. Something big will need to change.
via TechCrunch
Steve Jobs: 1955 – 2011
Steve Jobs: 1955 – 2011
Apple is reporting that Steve Jobs has passed away today.
We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.
Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.
His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.
Apple has posted a page containing the following message:
Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.
If you would like to share your thoughts, memories, and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com
Steve Jobs’ family has issued the following statement:
Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family.
In his public life, Steve was known as a visionary; in his private life, he cherished his family. We are thankful to the many people who have shared their wishes and prayers during the last year of Steve’s illness; a website will be provided for those who wish to offer tributes and memories.
We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve. We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief.
Tim Cook has sent out the following email to Apple employees:
Team,
I have some very sad news to share with all of you. Steve passed away earlier today.
Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.
We are planning a celebration of Steve’s extraordinary life for Apple employees that will take place soon. If you would like to share your thoughts, memories and condolences in the interim, you can simply email rememberingsteve@apple.com.
No words can adequately express our sadness at Steve’s death or our gratitude for the opportunity to work with him. We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much.
Tim
We have no words, other than to express our deepest gratitude for everything he gave us, and our deepest sympathies to his family, friends, and colleagues.
US President Obama has issued the following statement:
Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.
By building one of the planet’s most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity. By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun.And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike. Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.
The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, friend, and rival sent the following to AllThingsD:
I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work. Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.
For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.
