4 ms·

Too many compliments? Anyway. If the worker cannot move to the factory, the factory moves to the worker. That is the way of the world, and it causes many prob

• vinceguidry 10y ago
  > If the worker cannot move to the factory, the factory moves to the worker. > That is the way of the world, and it causes many problems. Factories need far fewer workers nowadays, due to continual improvements in technology. Globalization is already in retreat, but factory jobs are never coming back. Automation is not an all-or-nothing thing, in the long term jobs are lost, but over the short term automation has the effect of making jobs shittier. Labor becomes more and more fungible. The only people willing to do such shitty work are going to be those intensely motivated to do it, i.e. migrants. So they get scapegoated. Welfare initiatives like basic income will be tried but won't really have a huge impact on the squeezing of the middle class. Automation hasn't yet provided enough of a surplus to really provide for middle class lifestyles and won't for years. What it will do is take some of the pressure off of lower class existence. What we're going to see is greater geographical concentration of the classes. The middle class is going to have to start doing what the lower class has long gotten used to, moving to areas of greater opportunity.