technology and automation = human labour surplus?

[Oswy]

I'm fairly convinced by the argument that as technology and automation advance in their takeover in production and service, the need for human labour will go down relative to that advance, unless, that is, there's unending growth and all other things being equal.

Very few people ever agree with me though. I point to the current example in which supermarket till operators are now being replaced with self-service machines. A counter argument might be that new jobs are created in the manufacture and maintenance of self-service machines just as till operators are made redundant - but will that happen job for job?

Anyway, I would very much like some views on this, ideally of a non-technical nature (I'm not a student of economics). Real-world examples, like the supermarket one, are always helpful, even if they explain why my view is mistaken!

Cheers!

[Psy]

I'm fairly convinced by the argument that as technology and automation advance in their takeover in production and service, the need for human labour will go down relative to that advance, unless, that is, there's unending growth and all other things being equal.

Very few people ever agree with me though. I point to the current example in which supermarket till operators are now being replaced with self-service machines. A counter argument might be that new jobs are created in the manufacture and maintenance of self-service machines just as till operators are made redundant - but will that happen job for job?

Anyway, I would very much like some views on this, ideally of a non-technical nature (I'm not a student of economics). Real-world examples, like the supermarket one, are always helpful, even if they explain why my view is mistaken!

Cheers!
Well where the real reduction of labor comes from is that a cashier had to labor for the duration of that register was in service while a technician only has to labor for routine maintenance of the self-checkout and when it breaks down. Manufacturing of new machines mostly will only exist during the transition to self-check outs as the machines have a decent durability (meaning stores won't replacement that often).

[Rafiq]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/if-workers-were-t145774/index.html?t=145774

Then this will end capitalism as we know it. There has to exist surplus value from human labour for anything the Capitalist produces to have a price on it.

Still, even if Machines do all the work, who sais that the people shouldn't be able to take the means of production and democratically control what the machines produce?

[Dr Mindbender]

The idea that we must choose between automation or a society where all humans have a purpose is a false dichotomy as well as a product of ignorance and our cultural conditioning. If revolutionaries do not want a world where humans can be free not only from economic alienation but also from the burden of mundane servitude perhaps they ought to be reassessing their motives for revolution.

The price system not only creates scarcity within goods and services but also the roles which design the methodology to create these goods and services. High skilled jobs which tend to be higher paid and harder to automate are deliberately kept scarce in order to mantain their value and to artifically prevent over-production (eg a team of 100 scientists working to create a GM wheatfield will work faster than a team of 25 scientists) . A better society would be one where high skilled work and the training to participate in this work is distributed alongside the goods which are the by product. Its the capitalists (specifically the industry leaders most heavilly involved in the en masse employment of low skilled workers) that want us to think that humans subjucated into soul destroying, menial, repetitive graft is a necessary evil.

[Oswy]

Well where the real reduction of labor comes from is that a cashier had to labor for the duration of that register was in service while a technician only has to labor for routine maintenance of the self-checkout and when it breaks down. Manufacturing of new machines mostly will only exist during the transition to self-check outs as the machines have a decent durability (meaning stores won't replacement that often).

And, also, there's no guarantee that the new employment the now redundant till operator might obtain won't itself be under some kind of future technological or automation threat.

Presumably there will be some 'tipping point' where resettlement into new labour sectors becomes increasingly difficult and tehcnologically induced unemployment starts to creep up in a noticeable way. It's hard to say, however, how far into the future that will be.

[Dean]

I'm fairly convinced by the argument that as technology and automation advance in their takeover in production and service, the need for human labour will go down relative to that advance, unless, that is, there's unending growth and all other things being equal.

Very few people ever agree with me though. I point to the current example in which supermarket till operators are now being replaced with self-service machines. A counter argument might be that new jobs are created in the manufacture and maintenance of self-service machines just as till operators are made redundant - but will that happen job for job?

Anyway, I would very much like some views on this, ideally of a non-technical nature (I'm not a student of economics). Real-world examples, like the supermarket one, are always helpful, even if they explain why my view is mistaken!

Cheers!

I debated this with some libertarian children before. The consequence was that they decried my theoretical argument as "incompatible" with the rasl world.

So I found a real study which backed me up, and a theoretical piece which might back them up:

Theory: http://www.bus.msu.edu/econ/brown/pim/pdffiles98/labcomp198.pdf

Study: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/20979/1/spleec01.pdf

So we see that, in the real world, quite the opposite is true: technological advancements reduce the demand for labor in the long run, particularly skilled labor. The bulk of theory states the opposite, only because they have a predetermined conclusion to find their way around to.

[Dean]

The idea that we must choose between automation or a society where all humans have a purpose is a false dichotomy as well as a product of ignorance and our cultural conditioning. If revolutionaries do not want a world where humans can be free not only from economic alienation but also from the burden of mundane servitude perhaps they ought to be reassessing their motives for revolution.

The price system not only creates scarcity within goods and services but also the roles which design the methodology to create these goods and services. High skilled jobs which tend to be higher paid and harder to automate are deliberately kept scarce in order to mantain their value and to artifically prevent over-production (eg a team of 100 scientists working to create a GM wheatfield will work faster than a team of 25 scientists) . A better society would be one where high skilled work and the training to participate in this work is distributed alongside the goods which are the by product. Its the capitalists (specifically the industry leaders most heavilly involved in the en masse employment of low skilled workers) that want us to think that humans subjucated into soul destroying, menial, repetitive graft is a necessary evil.

The reduction in demand for labor is easy to apply to the workday, thereby reducing the net labor cost for the same output, but providing commensurate wages to workers whose labor has become more productive.

Economic theory consistently tries to define the world as it is today. I don't think there is any reason to diminish economic facts today, just because we can plainly see how they would be accommodated for in a socialist economy.

[Watermelon Man]

I'm fairly convinced by the argument that as technology and automation advance in their takeover in production and service, the need for human labour will go down relative to that advance, unless, that is, there's unending growth and all other things being equal.

It's a fairly interesting observation. Although it has some historical precedents, the Industrial Revolution for one, we live in a different world and it's worth looking at more recent history. We need only look as far back as the 1960s and 1970s when many large Western economies started to move their manufacturing sectors offshore. This was the beginning of the post-industrial era of many large cities worldwide.

Many of us in the Western world live in post-industrial cities, where we no longer make things (big things that is, there are still niche markets, obviously). Instead, we consume things made in other countries. Most of our jobs are in the service sector. If our job is somehow related to manufacturing, it is more likely to be in the design or conceptual phase, or in the transformation and value-adding of prefabricated materials - building a house, for example.

And, rising out of these post-industrial cities are new creative and intellectual industries. Old factories are turned into chic apartments and old industrial precincts become trendy boho hang-outs. Inner city areas have become artistic and intellectual strongholds. You might even say that these transformations in the social and cultural fabric of urban environments have been the result of fundamental changes to the modes of production and exchange. Indeed, in Melbourne, Victoria, this transformation has also brought about fundamental changes to the demographic make-up of the inner city and, importantly, the political colouring of the electorate. This has lead ultimately to the recent election of the first Greens MP to the federal House of Representatives by highly educated, young, progressive-minded voters. I can imagine similar things happening across the globe.

Back to your problem, however. Unless there is some portion of human society that will only ever be suited to manual work, it does not seem likely that increased automation will result in a surplus of human labour. That is to say, we all eventually find new things to occupy us, as the new creative and intellectual industries attest to. And the value of human contact in large service industries like finance and law - industries that largely power the growth of our biggest cities - has become incredibly ingrained in corporate and political culture that automation seems a very, very long way off.

[Dean]

Many of us in the Western world live in post-industrial cities, where we no longer make things (big things that is, there are still niche markets, obviously). Instead, we consume things made in other countries. Most of our jobs are in the service sector. If our job is somehow related to manufacturing, it is more likely to be in the design or conceptual phase, or in the transformation and value-adding of prefabricated materials - building a house, for example.
All of this has lowered the demand for labor, not only net hours, but also in terms of skill. The concise way to put it would be that the net value of labor demanded has been reduced - as a result of the transfer of much labor-intensive manufacture to foreign nations with large unskilled labor pools, the mechanization of labor, and the division of labor.


And, rising out of these post-industrial cities are new creative and intellectual industries. Old factories are turned into chic apartments and old industrial precincts become trendy boho hang-outs. Inner city areas have become artistic and intellectual strongholds. You might even say that these transformations in the social and cultural fabric of urban environments have been the result of fundamental changes to the modes of production and exchange. Indeed, in Melbourne, Victoria, this transformation has also brought about fundamental changes to the demographic make-up of the inner city and, importantly, the political colouring of the electorate. This has lead ultimately to the recent election of the first Greens MP to the federal House of Representatives by highly educated, young, progressive-minded voters. I can imagine similar things happening across the globe.
If you're talking about the cultural liberation of man, the expansion of folk industry, or the popularization of politics, you're wrong on every count. The most significant popular political movement in US history couldn't hold a candle to the interests of capitalist investors around 1900, and what we are seeing now with mainstream environmental groups is a capitalization of the movement.


Back to your problem, however. Unless there is some portion of human society that will only ever be suited to manual work, it does not seem likely that increased automation will result in a surplus of human labour. That is to say, we all eventually find new things to occupy us, as the new creative and intellectual industries attest to. And the value of human contact in large service industries like finance and law - industries that largely power the growth of our biggest cities - has become incredibly ingrained in corporate and political culture that automation seems a very, very long way off.
The investment and compensation-to-labor that capitalists provide is not driven by the "creativity" of commoners.

[robbo203]

I think the labour saving effects of automation are often grossly exaggerated.

Partly this is because people tend to overlook the fact that production is a socialised process and the production chain for any particular product is highly convoluted. Just looking at the final stage in the production process can be very misleading. The classic example of this Adam Smith and his pin factory where he talked about the productivity of producing pins being increased several thousand-fold through the division of labour , completely overlooking the labour that went into producing the machines and, before that, into the mines that extracted the ores that were made into the metal components etc etc.

Partly, also, people tend to overlook that capitalism is a system that is not directly concerned with the production of use values as such but is driven by its own systemic needs. Probably over half the work carried out in the formal sector of the capitalist money economy serves absolutely no use from the point of human welfare and wellbeing. It exists simply to service the needs of capital. Think of all those paper shuffling bankers, tax collectors, insurance salespersons etc etc. These jobs in the services sector have tended to expand and more than compensate for the loss of jobs in manufacturing due to automation. There is no reason why this should not continue to happen even despite developments such as office automation and even if it means more workers flipping hamburghers than doing something more skilled

In fact, for all the fears of a society of mass unemployment brought about by technological development, this simply has not materialised. In the UK for example the number of people in employment is higher now than it has ever been. In the US every single administration since the war has left office with the number of people in employment being higher than when it entered office (the sole exception seems to be the current Obama adminsitration but this can be put down to the recent recession and already the numbers in work is starting to grow again). People are working longer hours now than they did before as documented by Juliet Schor in her "The overworked American" and we have recently seen across the industrialised world the age of retirement being raised in response to the looming pensions crisis. More and more people over the age of 65 are still working.

No, the real problem with capitalism is not mass unemployment but the employment system itself and all that that entails. Instead of begging for a so called "right to work" as a wage slave we should be demanding the right to live as free human beings!

[PhoenixAsh]

This could very well be the case. In capitalism this could and imo will eventually be a bad thing...though one could argue will lead to diversification and opening up new services.

In a socialist system this would actually be a good thing....with more time being freed to spend on human and induvidual development and can eventually be applied to advance society and human interaction.

[Hoplite]

There are plenty of jobs that cannot be replaced with a robot, at least not for a very long time.

[PhoenixAsh]

There are plenty of jobs that cannot be replaced with a robot, at least not for a very long time.

true...but the world population keeps growing...and levels of education are not the same. Lowel level education jobs are mostly the first to go because they are more easilly replaced.

[Watermelon Man]

All of this has lowered the demand for labor, not only net hours, but also in terms of skill. The concise way to put it would be that the net value of labor demanded has been reduced - as a result of the transfer of much labor-intensive manufacture to foreign nations with large unskilled labor pools, the mechanization of labor, and the division of labor.

I know.



If you're talking about the cultural liberation of man, the expansion of folk industry, or the popularization of politics, you're wrong on every count. The most significant popular political movement in US history couldn't hold a candle to the interests of capitalist investors around 1900, and what we are seeing now with mainstream environmental groups is a capitalization of the movement.

The point wasn't about popular political movements. I was describing one of the current hallmarks of a postindustrial city - gentrification of former industrial precincts and the expansion of intellectual industries; what some call the quaternary sector. That Greens MPs are becoming more favorable in gentrified areas was just a point of interest.



The investment and compensation-to-labor that capitalists provide is not driven by the "creativity" of commoners.

Once again, it's not about 'creativity'. I'm not saying we 'invent' new jobs. It's about the changing nature of labor as manufacturing industries are moved offshore. The decline of industry has been matched by the rise of services and this quaternary sector - some cities have been hit hard, Detroit for example, but others have become financial and economic hubs of the world - New York and London for example. These cities and nations are centers for innovation and for intellectual labor - finance, law, economics, politics, design, etc.

A better criticism of my comments would be that they were incredibly Western-centric. Developing nations and newly industrialised nations are experiencing the negative effects of labor surplus for a variety of reasons - the the most familiar effect of this is the emergence of slums. But the Industrial Revolution is no precedent here; these countries won't simply 'get through it' like England did eventually. They don't have empires, and there's only so many places on Earth you can build a factory. My overall analysis was wrong - postindustrialisation is not the trajectory that all developing or newly industrialised nations are heading along, not by a long shot.

[Dr Mindbender]

There are plenty of jobs that cannot be replaced with a robot, at least not for a very long time.

I concur.

There are certain jobs where it would be not only impossible but undesirable for a robot to take over. Robots as we currently understand them, are only capable of completing logical and/or repetitive tasks. A robot is unable to make ethical decisions or learn tactful behaviour. For example, deciding when to quit resuscitation of a patient that has had a cardiac arrest and by extension breaking the news of death to next of kin.

I don't think robots would make very good social workers or child minders either.

What capitalism gets wrong is it makes people do both repetitive and social roles when it would be far more efficient to make repetitive tasks the sole domain of machines and machines only.

[Hoplite]

true...but the world population keeps growing...and levels of education are not the same. Lowel level education jobs are mostly the first to go because they are more easilly replaced.

There are just too many jobs that require some form of creative problem solving that cannot be handled by any technology we currently. Even very simple and low-end jobs require this kind of thinking.

Consider, if you've had to work any crap jobs, a time when you've had to make a snap judgement in response to a problem. A robot couldnt do that.

[jmpeer]

What are some examples of these jobs that cannot be automated or assisted with technology? (Obviously excluding the work that requires high levels of creativity or intelligence that society, regardless of the ability of computers, will still want to involve itself in.)

[Dimmu]

Your argument is of course valid when it comes to the capitalist system where people are slaves for wages and where the loss of a job will result in more or less death.

This will not be the case in a society where no money exist and instead of working in assembly lines, people will be able to devote their time and energy to work this things they really like.

[Hoplite]

What are some examples of these jobs that cannot be automated or assisted with technology? (Obviously excluding the work that requires high levels of creativity or intelligence that society, regardless of the ability of computers, will still want to involve itself in.)

Automated and assisted are two very different things.

Any job that deals with people cant be automated. You need someone who can think and respond creatively. Any job that requires problem solving skills cant be automated.

A good example is a security guard. Having actually done that job, it's not something that can be automated without serious problems. You may be able to reduce the number of guards you need by using cameras, motion sensors, gates, etc etc, but in the end you still need someone there to keep an eye on the cameras.

[jmpeer]

They're not really different. They serve the same purpose, but to different extents. Like you mentioned with the enforcement officers using the monitors. He's already replaced the need for officers to be stationed or partol wherever the he's monitoring. From weapontry, to metal detectors and full body scanners, to cameras, to motion detectors, to software that detects suspected criminals, to home security systems, to RFID chips, and so on, technology is increasingly being used for enforcement. Hell, there's even intelligent weapontry that can help target people and be operated remotely. Of course there will need to be some people invoolved in enforcement, but a decreasing number of them, especially since we're aiming to reduce poverty, national resource disputes, and such.