With the advancing technological unemployment, what jobs are REALLY needed in society?
Submitted by tamckissick on Wed, 11/21/2012 - 14:21As we know, technology is advancing our abilities to do work in both quantity and quality. This has been taking place fairly slowly for a long time but in recent years, it has been accelerating rapidly. We used to have 60% of our work force employed in just feeding everyone but now that's less than 2%.
This has reconfigured our economy toward making up new jobs. People have found ways to earn a living doing all kinds of other things. Some of which are productive while others are what I call 'fluff jobs'. These are jobs that we only think we need because we're too accepting of them to do that work ourselves.
However, technology has another ace up it's sleeve. It is now getting smart enough to relegate even those jobs to the dust bin. Soon, the business owners will switch over and finally end those jobs.
On top of that, even the so called 'productive' jobs are being downsized. For example, we used to have factories that employed hundreds to thousands of people for each of a dozen different electronic devices. Now, an automated factory of less than a hundred can make a smart phone or PC which can in a single shot replace all those devices. No more are the record players, tape decks, CD players, VHS and DVD players, clocks, phone books, maps and the thousand other devices these two little miracles are now replacing. Sure, in the past, we have kept those workers busy by troubleshooting either the hardware, software or humanware of the new devices, but they are now getting much more efficient.
Another aspect of this is that with each device that's no longer manufactured, we lose all the support jobs that go behind it. If no products need a certain resource, it's possible that industry may drastically downsize. You get the idea.
My question is what jobs are left today and what jobs will there always be? The follow up to this is how can we maintain equality across the employment spectrum when only a tiny percentage of today's jobs even exist?
My take is that lots of people will revert to less years of work (as opposed to less hours for the same years) and will retire early to give their job to the next person.
This may sound like Utopia but isn't it inevitable? And if so, I see no reason we can't direct society towards that path on our own. With the SHTF coming, it seems almost a no-brainer to go after starting now.
What are the group's thoughts?
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My job consists of managing
My job consists of managing 10-15 servers for a large healthcare provider. These computers could be completely managed very effectively by 5-6 people working 20-30 hours a week. This could be done while still providing the same or higher quality service to the patient. Instead these machines are the basis for probably 50 people to make 6 figure incomes, and the processes surrounding this inflated infrastructure ultimately impede patient care. This is not a good think in my opinion, as the reason this is the case is that healthcare as an industry is motivated to create need and justify federal dollars and not to create efficiencies.
So all of these costs end up going to the cost of the actual services provided, and the efficiencies of the technological advances are wasted.
My experience is about the same
in terms of ratio of productive hours to charged hours. This is in the public university system. We just aren't anywhere near the 6 figure level. It's been this way in most of my professional experience as well.
Question: Aside from the obvious fact of it not being fair, what would essentially be wrong with 90% of your work force staying home while still getting paid while 10% do the work? What if the 10% was rotated every 5 years?
This is a topic I have been
This is a topic I have been pondering for some years now, and needless to say I could go on for hours about it.
You have addresses this biggest concerns, technology has eliminated jobs, which is usually a good thing, while increasing productivity and sometimes quality as well (but we know that isnt their focus).
This use to mean a family has more time to rest, or work on another project. But with that elimination of a job, a family looses its income since we no longer operate in a self sufficient way. Now that they are out of a job they can no longer afford basic necessitites, even though there is more in supply than before.
So as a society we have created as someone labled it 'fluff' jobs. Most of these are not needed, or wouldnt be if a product was designed to last rather than break.
Also if you look at society, the jobs that are the most crucial to our survival, usually pay the least. (farmers, ranchers, teachers, miners) While jobs that produce no value on their own (Congress, bankers, investors) are paid extremly well. They way I have come to look at it is your productivity is inversily proportional to your pay. And someone else has pointed this out in a questionair he did.
So we are not alone in this though topic. Infact a man named Jacque Fresco spent his entire life thinking about this very subject, knowning that we can only create fluff jobs for so long.
I would incourage everyone, if you havent already, to look into The Venus Project. It proposes a radical change to our society to address this very issue, along with several others.
He has estimated that with current technology, only 10% of the workforce would be needed. This is done by eliminating wasteful jobs, building products to last rather than to sell, and automating what we can, especially everyday repetative task.
With this society we wouldnt need banker, lawyers, manager, or even garbage men. Because for the first few the system they operate on would be osbolete. And for mediocra task like trash collection, this could be automated through technology and a properly designed infastructure. All that would be left are technicians to look over the automated systems, and jobs like teachers, doctors, and engineers that require actual humans. And he suggest that in the future even some of these could be eliminated or reduced.
Now I wont go into any more detail about it since it begins to go off topic, but it is worth a look. And in his own words, it isnt perfect and never will be, but it is better than what we have now. And even if you dont agree with all the changes proposed, we can look at some of the information he puts out.
If we go by his estimation on 10% of the work force needed, we can guess that our currenty system will eventually reach that point. So how do we manage that. Jacque believes that in his system people will volunteer, but in a 'capalist' system who would volunteer to work and spend their time so that others can benifit. Sure there will be a few good doers, but not 10% worth.
So another option I suggest is that everyone still work, just not all the time. instead of working 40hr weeks, work 4 hrs a week, or maybe just be assigned 5 weeks out of the year to work.
Since the cost of living is so high, that wouldnt pay the bills. So we would have to increase pay to match that. And since technology has increased effeciency and productivity there are more than eneough resources to go around for this.
This would free up everyones time to do other enjoyable things, intern leading to an overall happier lifestyle. And who knows, with less time working for money to pay for things like power and morgages, we may see more people becoming self sufficient by planting their own garden, further increasing supply of essential items.
This is one of many solutions that could be proposed to address a major issue that no one wants to address. And the way I look at is is the only jobs that are needed are the ones that actually produce a resource, either raw from the ground, or refined from other raw resources. And thos are the ones that are important.
I think it's an inevitable topic for all Libertarians
Your comments exactly mirror mine of about 2 years ago. When I first learned of Jacques Fresco, I had similar beliefs. However, after seeing the problems there, I figured there had to be a way of consolidating the two belief systems together. I looked for his transition plan and found it virtually non-existent. While I kind of do believe his plan would work, I also think that to do so, people would simply have to be born into such a system because no rational transition seems probable.
This is how I came to my transition plan. The good news is that we don't have to actually follow it all the way to Jacques' drawing board. We can and likely will stop at 90% of the way, which is essentially a libertarian utopia of sorts.
What I see as key is to return money to its original value. This is the hinge on which everything else pivots. With that in place, workers will regain their status as being in control of the decision to take a job or not. They can dictate that wages outpace inflation (which will be almost non-existent) so their prosperity continually grows. Being able to set their own wages, they will regain the benefits of technological advancement, rather than ceding it to those who only shuffle money around. (That includes both bankers and corporate officers) This will lead to the end of all but the middle class and social problems will dwindle off. On top of that, the increased wealth of the common people will easily handle the reduced need for charity, entitlements and other hand-outs. This basically solves most all of our problems from one single fix. Just solve the money issue.
However, I don't think 'end the fed' rally's are going to do it. They can ignore them too easily. We first have to starve them of any income. That means becoming self sustaining and locally based. By doing this, we cut into the banks' profits enough so that their 100:1 leverage takes them out. Each of these battles won makes the next that much easier to do so the process snow-balls on its own.
When all this takes place, we will find that the money in the hands of the people (the true wealth by then) will be so prevalent that it will lose much of its importance. This is the point when we 'could' switch over to Jacques' Venus Project system, but it wouldn't necessarily be mandatory.
The major issue I have always
The major issue I have always seen with the Venus Project is there isnt a 'transition peroid'. Plain and simple it cannot be transisioned into. It has to be an all or nothing. The world has to wake up and say, we are going to do this, and then it is done. Granted it is estimated that it will take 10 years to go from where were are to the full implementation.
The idea as a whole is global or not at all. Sure we can manage with say 75% of the resources and people. Then those that want to live under some other system can go off and do that (they can even do that withing the Venus Project society so why would you want to seperate) But in order for it to function any needed resources must be contained withing it. This is why it cant be implimented in one country alone, no single country that I know of contains eneough of all the global resources needed.
So there lies the problem of transitioning into it, at least in a physical sense. Transitioning into it for a mental state can be done gradually. The only reason this is needed at all is because people are constantly told and brainwashed that we dont have eneough resources to go around and everyone must compete for their fair share. When in reality this isnt true. Think of how much food rots on store shelves because no one is there to buy it while a homeless man sits outside begging for change so he can eat. How many cars are rusting in a junk yard while we did gashes in the earth for more iron. How many tools and trinkets you buy that break right away, so you throw them in the trash and buy a new one.
But because of how our current systems work we must compete for this excess, while products are made to break and be wasteful. Your told that food prices must rise because there just isnt eneough to go around, while they sit and rot on a shelf because you cant afford it. So we must fight this perception, and wake people up to the reality that there is eneough to go around. Not eneough to be wasteful of it, but eneough that with the proper measures there is more than needed.
And when people realize this with the fact that technology can be implimented to do 90% of the work for us, then we can transition to the Venus Project.
And yes that starts with realizing that the people moving money around does nothing for our society and they are using us. And that because of technology companies can pay us more and require us to work less, rather than giving CEO's that delegate the real work to other massive bonuses and netting billions in profits and not paying any taxes to the system that allows it to operate.
So we do have a lot of growing to do before we can really realize the Venus Project. But we can make small strides every day to realize that goal. Because if we dont all of here know where it will lead. The same thing that has happened for countless cycles over the centuries.
A great nation is founded by people who give everything they have in hopes to create a better, easier place for themselves and others. And once that place is created, the people relax, while the corrupt slowly crawl in and destroy everything good about it. Eventually the people fight back giving everything they have in hopes to create a better, easier place for themselves and others.
What I believe the markets
What I believe the markets are telling us is we only need 50%employment and eventually even less.The problem is the huge national debt,the politicians not cutting spending and the bankers are not allowing prices to contract.They will not take any losses so they keep printing and inflating.Inflation causes us to NEED high employment because cost of living keeps increasing where as with contracting prices we could support ourselves with very low employment rate and income.Like Peter Schiff say most people work not because they WANT to but because they HAVE to.Remember before we were off the gold standard people were able to have a mortgage,a car and support a large family on one income not because of higher pay but because we didn't have a 100% purely corrupt monetary system.Like I keep telling everyone just about every single problem we have today is due to our corrupt,immoral and illegal monetary system.
You're on the right track
but you seem to have simply picked a very round number for no reason. I've read so much on this and the general consensus of all of that is that we really only need 15%, not 50%. The "even less" part that arrives from automating as much as we can drops to a staggering 5%.
Forget the politicians and bankers. If we did things the way they should be done (should have migrated to for the last century), then we would be earning roughly 5+ times our current nominal income and retiring in 1/5 of the career length. That spreads the 15% jobs out to 5 times as many people, meaning 75% of current numbers get to benefit. Now cut out those that don't want to work, second incomes, college kids, etc. and that's a perfect balance with the number of jobs available. Magic.
"Just about every single problem" I have yet to find a problem that I can't fully relate back to monetary enslavement.
I stand corrected.Most of the
I stand corrected.Most of the economists I follow say it is at a minimum 50% but it could very possibly be 15% or less.
There is a problem which you
There is a problem which you didn't address; and that is that the consumer technology/goods are moving in a direction which will require continuous employment: the Cloud -monthly payment, Leasing Cars -monthly payment, Renting a home/place to live -monthly payment, Internet Service -monthly payment, Cell phone -monthly payment, Public Water/Sewer -quartly payment, Upgrading or Replacing computers, cell phones and such -yearly or every other year payment.
The point being is that the services which people are becoming -by choice mostly- dependent on are becoming an On-Demand service; this isn't in and of itself a bad thing, but it will require people to contantly pay for the services which by necessity will require that the people have jobs to make the money to pay for these services.
So, while technology may theoretically be heading in a direction where work and employment could technically be minimized, the consumers are moving in a direction which will require people to continously work 'til there very last days. If this isn't a recipe for disaster then I don't know what is. These two trends are diametrically apposed to each-other; and this situation which is becoming ever more evident with every passing year, is and will continue to be used to push us further and further into Statism.
Awesome question
And the answer is that each and every one of your listed items and every other one that can be listed has a "buy once - own forever" solution available. Sure, replacements will always come into play but not near as much once longevity becomes a purchasing factor, not convenience or cost.
Cloud and Internet service - mesh networks are coming very soon where we all just connect to our neighbors and there's no central backbone or control. This may be done with today's WiFi, a 3G/4G config or even via LED light modulation (think porch lights, head lights, street lights, stop lights). The software will likely be free and the hardware is similar to today's equipment.
Leasing cars - This has always been dumb but if you can't afford to buy one, very soon we will have Skytran. www.skytran.net For 1/10 or less of owning a car and 1/20th of a cab ride, you can privately travel anywhere under 300 miles faster than by any other method.
Renting a home - Homes will be getting much cheaper very soon as automation techniques and non-standard building techniques come online. On top of that, as populace wealth increases, inter and intra-family lending will help this trend away from the banks and interest and toward very short term loans.
Water - With higher energy capacity, options like http://www.ardorm.com/index.php/products/atmospheric-water-g... become more sensible. This also leads to better waste water for centralized or self treatment. Combining with a small home digester, you can collect methane, heat, hydrogen, natural fertilizer or any combination from the output. Also, large scale water desalination / waste to energy systems are nearing commercialization.
Energy - New advancements in concentrated solar are poised to take over Solar PV and give people decentralized power from stored sunshine both day and night and the by-products are regular heat and/or cooling.
This is the short list but consider that each is LESS EXPENSIVE to the consumer over 3-4 year time frames than any option available today. There are many more and when one breaks through the dam of funding, the rest will follow.
A small comment...
Prefaced by the fact that I know nothing about "what the group thinks" and shudder at the idea...
I think your example of farming doesn't meet the scenario you describe in reality. Your scenario is one of decreased labor and increased quality. The reality in agriculture is that we have decreased labor---that's correct less than 2 percent---but also decreased quality. The food we are eating, to put it plainly, is very low quality food. It is almost wholly processed corn products. "Shit" has too many good connotations to use to describe what we are eating.
You also mentioned "society." You want real society? That is, do you want a society that is sustainable, healthy, and amenable to humans? Then I think what you need are: 1. farmers. 2. doctors. 3. manufacturers of firearms. 4. riflemen. 5. advisers. There are a lot of jobs there. Pick yourself one. But farmers (who produce healthy food, are connected to their land and place, and maintain the fertility of the same) certainly top the list. Read Wendell Berry.
Ah, but is quality really dropping?
If you're in the right circles, you have access to or can personally do very high quality farming. With permaculture, aquaculture and pasture grazing type movements, the quality of those products is skyrocketing in comparison to the general market.
I say we just have to take control back. If you actually are a farmer and worry about the economics of such a move, you really should look into some of the videos where a 1 acre greenhouse or 10 acres of outdoor land are generating staggering outputs and revenues by selling high quality products.
Mankind survived the wheel,
Mankind survived the wheel, the plough, the automobile, plastics, computers. Since the 70s there has been a huge increase in the labor supply, both from women and immigrants. There is always going to be enough work to be done as long as the government doesn't suppress it. But don't blame technology.
I'm not blaming it at all
I'm praising it and suggesting that we take the bull by the horns and make it OUR servant, not our enslaver.
Would you agree that through the use of technology and lots of creativity, we could eliminate 85% of the current jobs? (That's the standard number most surveys boil down to.) For example, the entire financial industry could be simplified into an app. Travel agents, gone. Tech support and customer service could become another app with only changes/additions needing administration. With a re-attempt at self checkout done correctly this time, cashiers could go away. Factory automation and mine production are also good candidates. In so many areas, we find room to let machines do the labor we don't want to do and we can let people do the rest.
However, to make such a system work or even to begin any migration towards it, we must solve the income inequality problem. We need to allow businesses be created by the people who truly want to share the profits fairly. Those people exist all over today but they can't survive in today's environment where the banking industry monopolizes the business startup process.
I think in 50 years from now,
I think in 50 years from now, a lot of the jobs that we do now would definitely be unnecessary. And that's a good thing. Look back 50 years ago, most of those jobs are gone now. And 50 years before then, most of those jobs were gone then.
The answer isn't to limit greed. That is a dead end. It's how to harness greed to produce as many good and services as possible.
The "50 years from now" of then
has become the 5 years from now of today. Advancement is exponentially accelerating.
In 1990, the fastest company to hit $1B in revenue took a decade. In 2000, it happened in 5 years. In 2005, it took 2 years and last year it happened in under a year. Even counting for massive inflation (the devaluing of $1B) that's very fast.
Greed isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as all players (the workers and the employers) have an equal playing field to compete on.
who needs a job?
all people really need is a farm to take care of themselves. You only need a job so that you pay someone else to provide for you.
_________________
Romney is a detour on the way to liberty, anyone else is a shorter path, win or lose.
Sure people may only NEED a farm
But what do you say to the majority who want to enjoy the advancements that civilization has created for us? How does one lone farmer buy clothes, Brie cheese or an iPad and get it on the internet? Do you suggest they all barter their way up to these things? Think of owning a car and how that car might get into the market place in the beginning of it's existence. Someone had to buy it new.
I'm not saying many or most jobs shouldn't go away but rather more like you are saying that they simply aren't necessary. And considering the exponential snowball effect of eliminating that money changing hands in society, there's enormous incentive. The point to take away though is that we don't need to work as long as most people do.
I don't rely on what others do
just don't give me this crap that jobs are necessary. You can do other things while farming to get money. Sell things you grow or make. Sell services to others by speciallizing in something needed.
You seem to confuse needs and wants.
_________________
Romney is a detour on the way to liberty, anyone else is a shorter path, win or lose.
Please clarify
Are you saying that A job is not necessary for you or
that no job is necessary for anyone?
I can agree with the former but not the latter. Selling things you grow or make and selling services are all technically a 'job'. One might also question your statement that you don't rely on what others do. How was it that you were able to create this reply and by what products and services did it end up on this site?
If you read my other replies below, I really am advocating that most jobs go away. People don't realize that by doing more themselves (with the help of tech) and by owning more stuff long term (longevity via tech also), they could proportionally eliminate that percentage of jobs they need. In some cases, as you are seeming to suggest, they can get completely off the wage bandwagon. In others, it might just lead to an earlier retirement.
We're not supposed to want "jobs" in this country.
We're supposed to be entrepreneurs. It's the socialist agenda over the last hundred years that has pretty much eliminated "entrepreneurs" from the discussion.
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I can't sew
to save my life so my family would have no clothes. I also don't relish cleaning my clothes (which I won't have because I can't sew) by beating them on a rock (which seems to be a job only relegated to women in such a self-sustaining household).
There needs to be a balance in all things.
Modern appliances are a good thing but there is a line which when crossed makes one uber-dependent and inefficient.
The law cannot make a wicked person virtuous…God’s grace alone can accomplish such a thing.
Ron Paul - The Revolution
Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms. Ron Paul
interesting
I believe you are correct hence the increase in human services jobs from government. Also we need to create jobs that women like to do as more women than men are going to college and entering the workforce. My spin. There are too many people working too many hours for the Modern US economy to accommodate. The "growth" solution is invalid. Systemic change must occur.
A couple years ago..
I took inventory of all the businesses in my town and all the positions at these places. For each one, I asked if it were possible to
a) eliminate that job completely
b) automate it away completely
c) automate it down to less hours
d) consolidate it into another
e) leave it as is
The result was staggering. Almost 80% of the jobs were in category A. Maybe another 10% in B. Leaving C, D & E to cover the last 10% fairly equally. The astonishing thing was that almost EVERY job that paid very highly was in A or B. Twelve doctors were the exception.
What does this mean? Well, as I see it, it means that we simply need to make this shift and re-scale the wages to accommodate. See my reply below this one for how.
fully automated?
with computer programmers watching and fixing the robotic workers
on the floor
there won't be much need for many people,only the ones who can fix the robots and the computers if they act up
SOOO,what are the rest of the people to?,say like the ones stuck in cities and apartments who can't grow their food and raise their own animals?
deacon
Piece-O-Cake
The only jobs that would likely exist after a heavy 'cleansing' of fluff jobs are those that it really makes more sense for people to do over machines. I believe this is inevitable so why shouldn't we plan accordingly.
IMHO, the ONLY problem with that is the level of pay seems (from today's standpoint) to be too low to sustain the population. e.g. keep pay the same and cut 85% of the jobs would equal 15% of the cumulative income. This is the problem I think we should discuss how to work out (below).
The issue of 'can every family derive an income in a supposed robot-technician-only world' is a different one. I don't see this as a problem because if the wealth issue was solved, I believe people would have more than enough wealth and we would go back to paying artists, composers, writers and other creative types (digital yet to come?) much more readily. Also, look how simplified PC troubleshooting has become in the last decade. We used to have to intimately know how all the inner hardware worked to fix programs and incompatibilities. Now, we only have to know spam and reloading software.
The wealth issue, for me, is easily solved by the elimination of the theft shown in my 'Old Math' post at http://www.dailypaul.com/274581/old-math where I lay out how 60+% of our income is stolen from us. With that returned, we could retire by age 30, literally. The reason that is so profound is because of the following.
If your discretionary or 'extra' money each month amounted to $300 and you get a $300/month raise, you have effectively doubled your perceived wealth. If you instead received a 300% or 400% raise (by keeping the wealth robbed from you now), your perceived wealth is anywhere from 5-15 times what it used to be. That's up to a 1500% increase!
With those raises possible in a very real way, retirement ages will plummet to around age 30. By retiring in 8 years instead of 40, you will be passing your job on to 4 other people during what would have been your original career length. This is effectively employing 5 times the people, so instead of 15% 'employment', we would be looking at 75% 'employment'. So far, ALL OF THIS IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE TODAY.
So the only one of your issues left is how to employ those not smart enough for robotics and not creative enough for the arts. I highly doubt that there won't be enough jobs left for the small number of people that affects. Surely, there is at least one breadwinner in each family smart enough to do social work, counselling, or sponge baths for the disabled. If not, well maybe our education system will morph into something a little more educational.
By the way, on growing food in an apartment... Next year, you'll see a turnkey home aquaponics system that fits in a 6 foot cube, indoors and supplies four people with all their veggies, fish and shrimp year round, plus barter stock.
the_oracle spoke of this
every post he made here was downvoted
and he was ridiculed for his insight
now it comes back around again.lets see if this post stands up to the down voting liberty loving
patriots of the DP,but as i have seen,history has proved otherwise here
deacon
Does it count
that it took 3 months to get any attention? lol
Who is this "the_oracle" that you speak of?
Re: your sig
I never stop to think. In everything I do, I'm always thinking - How could this be done better?
lol,i didn't even notice
the date of your post,guess i missed it the first time around
happy to finally read it
the_oracle was a member here,he hasn't been back in a long time
but he wrote like you do
reg my sig...it's just something i was asked years back because of my hair color,i thought it was funny
deacon
Thanks for the thoughtful post!
I caught wind of it in one of your comments from today. I too have been stuck on the concept of jobs...I mean, why they heck do so many people think a job is end.
A job is a means to a end. It's not the end.
I've been wanting to do an in depth research paper on this topic of jobs, and as you point out, the misallocation and reallocation of resources, and how technology plays into this.
To answer your questions directly:
What jobs are left today?
The desk and bureaucratic jobs are still here as people cannot see the opportunity costs of these government jobs. Every gov't job is a private job that never was, is savings spent , is investments squandered and misallocated, among other things. An opportunity cost of war is less entrepreneurs, less musicians, less doctors, as human capital and ingenuity is also misallocated.
What jobs will always be?
No job is safe with technology...at least, that's the idea isn't it?!
I agree with you that people will work less, but not out of requirement, but rather out of choice, or lack of need. That is what should happen in a free market with stable money and real wealth creation. We shouldn't be working more now, we should be working less....this theft of wealth is through monetary inflation.
I ask not for divine providence or more riches, but more wisdom with which to accept & use wisely the riches I received at birth in the form of the power to control & direct my mind to what ever ends I desire. www.RevolutionCarBadges.com/daily-paul