4 ms·

A large middle class hasn't been around all that long in the history of civilization. Maybe it's just a flash in the pan. My guess is that computer programming

• zitterbewegung 10y ago
  Programming isn't the new blue collar manufacturing job because you don't employ nearly as many people as you were doing manufacturing as you would be employing as computer programmers. Look at the amount of programmers at Alphabet (Google) vs people employed by Ford.
  • xapata 10y ago
    How about Infosys, Wipro, etc.? That kind of programming might employ a large number of people. I think many jobs which now only use spreadsheets for arithmetic may transform into programming jobs. Even some jobs which appear to be only words, like law, might become programming.
• lhnz 10y ago
  > In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is > a working class person who performs non-agricultural > manual labour. Blue-collar work may involve skilled > or unskilled manufacturing, mining, sanitation, > custodial work, oil field work, construction, > mechanical maintenance, warehousing, firefighting, > technical installation and many other types of > physical work. > > In contrast, the white-collar worker typically > performs work in an office environment and may > involve sitting at a computer or desk. Computer programming is currently white-collar work. At what point are we going to go outside and begin to do it with our hands? Also, the nature of programming is the ability to automate away white-collar work. We're probably going to need new categories, once many of those are gone. We might end up with engineers, a service-worker class and a managerial/executive class.
  • Florin_Andrei 10y ago
    Read things less literally and you'll be less wrong.
    • lhnz 10y ago
      Can you explain what you mean? There seems to be little connection between the category of blue-collar work and programming other than it is a form of 'building'. The crux of blue-collar work is that it predominately involves physical labor and does not require 'skill'. That's not a literal interpretation, that's the core meaning -- programming is not analogous to physical labor or 'unskilled' work.
      • xapata 10y ago
        > blue-collar ... physical labor and does not require skill If you drop the physical labor requirement, some computer programming tasks can be performed by folks without much education. Manufacturing has historically been a low-skilled, not un-skilled job. Programming can be, too, if we change the way we teach.
      • ameister14 10y ago
        >The crux of blue-collar work is that it predominately involves physical labor and does not require 'skill'. The former, yes - the latter, no. A boilermaker or a welder is a blue-collar worker, but doing either requires a great deal of skill. What it does not require is 'artistry.'
      • khedoros1 10y ago
        Take it in the sense of "[Color] is the new black". Obviously, it's not literally true. But (going back to xapata's statement) computer programming could come to occupy the same role in society that manufacturing jobs used to. That's how I would've read the comment.
      • maverick_iceman 10y ago
        A welder's job doesn't require too much physical labor and a lot of skill but it would still be classified as blue collar.
• rrggrr 10y ago
  I think you've nailed it with this observation. The middle class may be a mile marker on a many millennium journey from self/tribal sustenance to ubiquitous sustenance as specialization, automation and efficiency combine to compress social-economic classes. This assumes an intelligent and benevolent ruling class. The Snowpiercer outcome is possible too.
  • e40 10y ago
    This assumes an intelligent and benevolent ruling class. That would never happen, except temporarily. Those who want power for selfish reasons (money, control, etc) will always prevail in the long run, because they are slightly more likely to seek power. It's the Darwinism of politics. What we see going on today is merely that playing out. Good politicians play by the rules and the bad ones do not. This puts the good ones at a severe disadvantage. I'm using "good" here to mean ethical and moral.