The Future of Labour

[Captain Awesome]

I wonder if iPod creation was viewed as some kind of threat to labor forces too..

"Once nobody needs stereo boom boxes, what will happen to all the workers????" You know, without taking into consideration that Apple just became the biggest company in the world and employs hundreds of millions of people (if you take spin off industries into consideration).

[steven lloyd]

I will inform my accountant friends that they don't really contribute anything. Their auto-reaction will be to ask then what good are lawyers exactly? SL can probably chime in on that one.

Lawyers. What a great example of the value of a Liberal Arts education. No other degree (commerce, some science, etc.) will better prepare a person to write the LSAT or practice law. As far as value? I think that people probably underestimate the value of lawyers – until they desperately need one. Same thing with accountants I suspect, and when I was referring to people on Wall Street who provide absolutely no value to the economy I was referring to neither lawyers nor accountants.

As an aside, a friend who is a Crown lawyer spent his university summers running equipment in an underground mine in northern Ontario. Ya, I think that type of work is going to be around for awhile – like a few more centuries anyways.

I wonder if iPod creation was viewed as some kind of threat to labor forces too.

This is the thing. Socially, culturally and economically we are evolving. There will always be a workforce of some type, but the nature of work, the way it looks will continue to change. Specializing in an educational discipline may become something of a crap shoot, a bit of a gamble. I remember when everyone was telling everyone - get a diploma in computer science. Given how pervasive computers still are in our society how did such a diploma become so worthless, and the degree only marginally less so? The worls is changing, it will continue to change and the pace of that change is only going to increase. Not everyone will want to earn a business or science degree (thank God as that would create its own set of problems for us collectively) and people who earn Liberal Arts degrees will have the critical thinking skills, global outlook and ability to learn that will allow them to adapt to change and be in demand in many sectors (or at least that’s what the research suggests ).

p.s. the hippy with the Rasterfarian dreadlocks and dope glazed eyes with a Liberal Arts degree ?
Newsflash - having a degree in Liberal Arts is not the reason he can’t find a job.

[The Green Barbarian]

we already have the Snuggie and the Slapchop.

I've got two of both! The Snuggie is great- the Slapchop is garbage. I can't wait to buy a Schticky!

[The Green Barbarian]

p.s. the hippy with the Rasterfarian dreadlocks and dope glazed eyes with a Liberal Arts degree ?
Newsflash - having a degree in Liberal Arts is not the reason he can’t find a job.

yup

[Captain Awesome]

There will always be a workforce of some type, but the nature of work, the way it looks will continue to change.

Indeed.

Overall, people get paid for either what they do (physically) or what they know (professionals). Many decades ago majority of people where getting paid for what they do physically and minority of what they know people. Over the decades, people were slowly transferring from physical work group to intellectual. To answer zzzontars and jennylives concerns, just because less and less people will do physical work doesn't mean they'll be unemployed - they'll just transfer to the other group. And it been going for ages and ages - and if you look at history, it's a sign of society that is evolving to a higher state. Good god, even Karl Marx predicted that.

p.s. the hippy with the Rasterfarian dreadlocks and dope glazed eyes with a Liberal Arts degree ?
Newsflash - having a degree in Liberal Arts is not the reason he can’t find a job.

I have nothing liberal arts degrees. No need to defend them :)

[steven lloyd]

There will always be a workforce of some type, but the nature of work, the way it looks will continue to change.

Indeed.

Overall, people get paid for either what they do (physically) or what they know (professionals).

And to extrapolate on that, for what they can learn, discover and create.

... , just because less and less people will do physical work doesn't mean they'll be unemployed - they'll just transfer to the other group. And it been going for ages and ages - and if you look at history, it's a sign of society that is evolving to a higher state.

Absolutely. In this day and age and now more than ever people should be recognizing that work has changed and is changing and whatever a person does to make money and earn a living will involve continual leaning and adaptation. Trying to stop or control the changes that are going to take place in work is as pointless as trying to stop or control climate change. It would be like trying to stop the flow of a river. Best advice I have is learn how to swim (think and learn) - or better yet, build a boat.

I have nothing liberal arts degrees. No need to defend them :)

:138: I was just throwing that out there to the peanut gallery at large

[Captain Awesome]

Here's a good article on why iPhones are produced in Asia and not in US like they used to be. Apple used to highlight that their iPod were produced in US but it changed few years ago. The article also highlights the fact that it's not cost of labour that ships these jobs to Asia, but other less understood factors.

Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/busin ... wanted=all

[jennylives]

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

It's not breathtaking, it's disgusting and cruel. Of course North Americans aren't interested in joining a race to the bottom. What a great life of wage slavery. I sure wish I could live in a dorm at my work and never have an actual life.

[Captain Awesome]

It's not breathtaking, it's disgusting and cruel. Of course North Americans aren't interested in joining a race to the bottom. What a great life of wage slavery. I sure wish I could live in a dorm at my work and never have an actual life.

But ... but....but I thought we should be worried about not having enough physical jobs in North America. Apparently we're not interested in them now.

[jennylives]

Then you completely missed the point. We don't need the jobs for society to function, we need the jobs to live on the individual level. The lack of jobs is not the problem. How we view jobs as our mode of providing life's basics is the problem. It is unsustainable. We allow people to "live" like this so we can have gadgets. It's wrong.

[grammafreddy]

Then you completely missed the point. We don't need the jobs for society to function, we need the jobs to live on the individual level. The lack of jobs is not the problem. How we view jobs as our mode of providing life's basics is the problem. It is unsustainable. We allow people to "live" like this so we can have gadgets. It's wrong.

We don't "allow" anything, Jenny. We choose to completely ignore it so that "we" can have our toys. There's a big difference. Do you have a cell phone or i-whatever? Then, if so, you chose this, too.

To get yer knickers in a knot about it while buying and using these products is rather hypocritical here. You decry their working conditions and yet you contribute to their plight. And it's not just these technical toys, either - it is virtually all products from Third World countries.

However, the bulk of these people are poorer than the poor coming into the cities from outlying areas to take these jobs because they are better than what they had before. Young people are getting smarter there and are now unionizing and demanding better conditions, more sleeping time, better pay and better food in their dormitory cafeterias. In order for them to survive and get ahead, they need these jobs.

You are comparing a very communistic societal structure with a westernized democratic one. They don't equate, Jenny. You can't compare them with any degree of anything because they are two totally different kinds of lifestyles and governments. One was kept downtrodden and poor and one was capitalistic and advanced astronomically.

That tide is turning - and we will probably regret what it becomes. But as long as we want all our cheaply produced goodies, we will keep buying them and so we will reap what we sow. I doubt it will be pretty.

[Captain Awesome]

Then you completely missed the point.

I wasn't exactly talking about your viewpoints, but those of other people in this thread...

[grammafreddy]

We don't need the jobs for society to function, we need the jobs to live on the individual level. The lack of jobs is not the problem. How we view jobs as our mode of providing life's basics is the problem. It is unsustainable.

I think you need to spell out what you are getting at with more details and perhaps some examples. First you say we don't need the jobs, then in the same sentence you say we do. You say lack of jobs is not the problem, and then you say the problem is providing life's basics through working at jobs.

I think I know where you're going (back to that totally socialistic society where everyone contributes to the good of the whole) but again, I don't think that concept allows at all for basic human nature. Somebody will always want to be at the top and try to control things for personal gain. Just like now. If people get things for free, nobody will work and everyone will be standing in line at the food store waiting for a loaf of bread that nobody made.

[steven lloyd]

Interesting article, but jenny makes a point:

• Workers who live in dormitories, on-call and available 24 hrs a day
• Working six days a week, 16 hours a day
• Underwritten plant construction costs by government (Chinese)

Of course we can’t compete with that, and do we want to? Globalization has allowed corporations to take archaic labour practices elsewhere, but it is only a matter of time until those workers go through the same labour rebellion as occurred in Western civilizations. No matter what they are used to, people will only put up with being treated like pond scum for so long.

The market (labour and capital) will eventually balance itself out. The movement toward balance on this continent was interupted by globalization and now has to occur across a much larger stage - but it will happen eventually. In the meantime, corporate executives will allow their friends and neighbors at home to suffer the consequences of short-sighted greed.

[grammafreddy]

In the meantime, corporate executives will allow their friends and neighbors at home to suffer the consequences of short-sighted greed.

How so? What do you mean by "consequences of short-sighted greed"?

Also, there's that word "allow" again. This is a choice we make to buy "things". There's no need to blame corporate executives for our greed and desire to blow money on things we buy. The executives dream up new toys, advertise them, we answer the call of the advertising and demand we have these new toys (or anything for that matter - from A to Z). We do have the power to say "no", we just choose not to act on it.