I thought I might as well wait for Ed to reply on this topic.
As Ed and others know, I believe Rifkin's central thesis is correct, that
technology is reducing the number of available jobs in the long run. I'm
much more dubious about his proffered remedy of the "third sector" or
"volunteerism" as I believe he was calling it in "The End of Work."
I don't see so much ground for optimism about future employment as Ed seems
to. It is true that the new technology creates some new wants and hence some
employment opportunities. There were no website designers 10 years ago.
However, for several reasons I believe there will be a net loss of jobs and
many displaced workers who will not have the abilities to fit into the new
knowledge economy.
1. When we consider the application of digital technology to manufacturing
and many areas of the service industry, it makes no economic sense to
believe that it will create more jobs than it destroys. If internet banking
eliminates a payroll of $x million dollars in tellers' salaries, plainly the
banks and their technology suppliers combined must be spending significantly
less than $x million dollars on the new jobs created to supply and service
the technology.
2. Even if there were no net job loss (which I don't concede) many elements
of the population simply don't have the aptitude to become knowledge workers
and as far as I can tell their children won't have it either. (I can resist
sideswiping Ian Ritchie's other posting from Leadbetter. As I read
Leadbetter's glowing account of living by his wits as if everyone could
achieve economic salvation by setting up as an independent knowledge worker,
I thought to myself, this man has never talked to a welder who was laid off
when a shipyard closed down. He frankly doesn't have a clue about the
situation of the ordinary factory worker or waitress; his salvation is only
for some of those who were downsized out of the elite managerial class.)
3. In its general application the computer revolution is like no technology
that ever occurred before. It's not simply factory workers who are being
eliminated. Bank tellers are going too. How many living breathing
receptionists do you get to talk to now? Supermarket workers are on the
block. Let's not forget the wide swath that computers cut through middle
managers way back in the 1980's. Some of them, I understand, ended up on the
streets of Toronto.
4. An extension of the previous point. I don't believe the knowledge
industry is immune to automation. Ten years ago my younger son got his
diploma as a computer technician (Certified Electronics Technician). He's
doing all right, thank you. However, I was rather taken aback five years ago
to read a StatsCan release which said that the number of computer techs had
shrunk by 40% in the years 1990-95. This was attributed to the use of
modular components. Since getting above the technician level, my son has
several times told me that the job seems to be going downhill now in terms
of numbers and pay. When he was working for a large ISP in the USA, the
techs had nothing to do at an installation but hook up a few cables; all the
software configuration that was formerly done on site was now done over the
phone lines. He's now working for a computer security company, and he tells
me that the ability to send secure transmissions over the internet backbone
has eliminated a large number of technical jobs with large corporations that
formerly had to maintain a Wide Area Network.
I could go on at length, but I think that's enough to establish that it's at
least plausible that computer technology will result in a drastic net loss
of jobs over the next few decades.
As for Rifkin's "third sector" or "volunteerism" I found this notion very
fuzzy and got no clear picture of the mechanism by which it would supposedly
produce jobs.
Maybe part of the problem is that as a Canadian I consider much of what
Rifkin calls the third sector to be properly part of the public sector;
e.g., health care.
Ed writes: "At least in our lifetimes and probably even those of our
> grandchildren, we will continue to need doctors, lawyers, nurses,
gardeners,
> prosthetists, mechanics, farmers, teachers, transportation workers,
> stockbrokers, engineers, architects, insurance salesmen, politicians and a
> variety of other skilled and knowledgeable people."
I agree that many of those careers will continue--though there may be far
fewer farmers, and maybe the world would be a better place without
stockbrokers!--but notice how many of the careers named fall within the
publicly-supported sector of health care and education. To my mind, the
question is who is going to fund those workers?
Victor
----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Ian Ritchie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; 'futurework'
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: July 14, 1999 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: Jeremy Rifkin - 1-6-99
> Thank you Ian Ritchie for posting Jeremy Rifkin's remarks on "Work, Social
> Capital, and the Rebirth of the Civil Society." I know that I'm being
> enormously unfair to Rifkin because I've only been able to read the first
> few pages of anything he's written without feeling that I'm being fleeced
by
> a con man. In the comments below, I may have fallen into the same trap,
so
> those of you who are Rifkin fans can choose between dismissing me or
> forgiving me. Anyhow, here are my comments:
>
> In his very first paragraph, Rifkin gets into typical "Rifkinese": change
> must, of course, be "profound", resulting in a "radical new world". He
also
> rather quickly gets into nonsense, telling us that up until now we have
been
> living in a bipolar world in which only the marketplace and government
> played a role. Soon, however, the rest of us who live in the "civil
sector"
> may also get to play. I'm not sure of what he is suggesting here, but
> whatever it is, it will surely reshape "our very ideas of citizenship."
> Perhaps he doesn't recognize that, in at least some parts of the world,
> people have had the right to vote, establish political parties, and create
a
> variety of powerful public institutions for at least a few decades if not
> much longer.
>
> Rifkin then tells us that because of the increasing use of robotics the
"...
> number of factory workers in the United States declined from 33 percent of
> the workforce to under 17 percent in the past 30 years, even as American
> companies continued to increase production and output..." This may indeed
> be so, but he implies that what is true of American manufacturing is true
of
> the American economy as a whole, and indeed of the global economy. He
goes
> further in suggesting that, because of robotics, there has been an actual
> movement of labour out of work and into idleness. I would suggest that
this
> is nonsense. Despite robotics and a variety of other changes in the
labour
> market, unemployment in the US has been very low during the past decade,
and
> there is little evidence that it is about to rise. Indeed the current
fear
> is inflation, not unemployment.
>
> It is true that robotics have displaced people out of particular jobs.
> Historically, innovative technologies have always done so. But in
advanced
> countries which are experiencing considerable unemployment, as is Canada
and
> Western Europe, technological displacement has generally not been the
> leading cause. Canada, for example, has traditionally relied on its
> resource industries to power its economic engines. These industries have
> been in a long decline during the past couple of decades. In Western
> Europe, the rigidity of government and union labour policies appears to be
> important.
>
> I don't necessarily disagree with Rifkin's argument that "Over the next
> quarter century, we will see the virtual elimination of the blue collar,
> mass assembly line worker from the production process." But as a response
I
> would suggest a big "So what?" When the assembly line was initiated in
the
> auto industry early in this century, it displaced a substantial number of
> people who had made cars in much the same manner as they had made
carriages
> in the previous century. Most of those displaced people and their
decedents
> found another place in the economy. Rifkin's problem is that he sees
things
> as always shrinking and ending, never beginning and expanding. What he
does
> not seem to recognize is that in a progressive economy old opportunities
> close but new ones open. I don't know if this kind of analysis has been
> done, but it would be interesting to put some numbers on how many new
> opportunities the so-called computer revolution has created and how many
old
> ones it has actually closed. I would be rather surprised if the effect
was
> as negative as Rifkin implies. I would also be surprised if it was found
> that fewer opportunities had been created than had vanished.
>
> But here I run directly into some of Rifkin's most cherished opinions:
> "While the "knowledge sector" will create many new jobs, they will likely
be
> too few to absorb the millions of workers displaced by the new
technologies.
> That's because the knowledge sector is, by nature, an elite workforce and
> not a mass workforce. Engineers, highly skilled technicians, computer
> programmers, scientists, and professionals will never be needed in "mass"
> numbers to produce goods and services in the Information Age. Indeed, the
> shift from mass to elite labor forces is what distinguishes work in the
> Information Age from that of the Industrial Age." And that: "The reality
is
> that the world is polarizing into two potentially irreconcilable forces
on
> one side, an information elite that controls and manages the high-tech
> global economy; and on the other, a growing number of marginalized or
> permanently displaced workers who have few prospects and little hope for
> meaningful employment in an increasingly automated world."
>
> I find two things wrong with these opinions. First, information is not a
> one way street. What Rifkin seems to overlook is that there are, and
always
> will be, information users as well as information purveyors. Blue-collar
> work undertaken on the factory floor may well disappear, at least in high
> income economies, but a vast array of other kinds of work which will have
to
> be performed by human workers, not robots, will remain and probably expand
> in the long run. At least in our lifetimes and probably even those of our
> grandchildren, we will continue to need doctors, lawyers, nurses,
gardeners,
> prosthetists, mechanics, farmers, teachers, transportation workers,
> stockbrokers, engineers, architects, insurance salesmen, politicians and a
> variety of other skilled and knowledgeable people. As the kinds of skills
> utilized by these people change, so will their information needs. The
elite
> who transmit information will have to rely on those who have knowledge to
> provide it. And given the changes that are occurring in the international
> economy, in health, and in other fields, new occupations will arise, new
> knowledge will be needed and new methods of disseminating information will
> be needed.
>
> Second, I think Rifkin's image of a bipolar world, with one group standing
> in command over here, another in abject servility over there, is as false
> one. That is not how things are now, nor are they likely to be this way
in
> future. New technology is not locked up in some fortress to which only a
> few hold the key; it is present everywhere, at work, in the classroom, on
> the street, and in the home. I would suggest that, as familiarity with new
> technology increases, a networking model in which everyone has an
> opportunity to input and access output is far more likely than an "us
versus
> them" bipolar one. What may emerge as the information age progresses is a
> much more connected and integrated world than we have ever experienced in
> the past. This is already suggested by the expanding use and
> uncontrolability of the Internet.
>
> As noted above, in his opening paragraph, Rifkin does recognize that the
> world is moving from a bipolar government-market place one to a tripolar
> government- marketplace-civil sectors one, a move which probably began
when
> King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, if not much earlier.
> I will grant that the information economy is currently dominated by a few
> large players, such as Microsoft. This too is nothing new. The
introduction
> of any new technology usually occurs under monopoly conditions. However,
> these eventually break down. Wary of public and political opinion,
> governments will eventually apply anti-combines legislation. Smaller
> players will eventually find ways of getting around the exclusivity of a
new
> technology. For example, the Linux system is now beginning to challenge
> Microsoft's dominance of computer operating systems. Given such
> considerations, I do not share Rifkin's concern that "While our political
> leaders have embraced the Information Age, extolling the virtues of
> cyberspace and virtual reality, they have, for the most part, steadfastly
> refused to address the equally important question of how to ensure that
the
> dramatic productivity gains of the new high-tech global economy will be
> shared broadly among every segment of the population." I would suggest
that,
> in many different ways, both our leaders and we ourselves are addressing
> this question.
>
> Ed Weick
>
>
>
>
