On 5/8/08, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On May 7, 2008, at 11:02 PM, Eugene Coyle wrote: > > > > Technological progress destroys, doesn't create jobs. > > > > It can destroy jobs or create them. Railroads, cars, telephones, airplanes, > and computers all created far more jobs than they destroyed.
This is about half right. Some tech progress creates the potential for new markets for new commodities. But demand for those new commodities is not intrinsic, it has to be learned and often massively subsidized with public works spending (e.g., on paved roads, airports). It is the effective demand for the new products that creates jobs, not the technology itself. Also, the debate about technology creating/destroying jobs is distorted by reification of what technology is. Technology consists of both the skills and the tools -- things and social contexts. The social is primary. You can have tech progress by finding new ways to use existing tools but you can't have it by using new tools in the old way. The most elemental technologies of capitalism consisted of imposing new social arrangements -- increasing the hours of work to accomodate factory production and then limiting the hours of work to accomodate expanded reproduction and intensification of the work process. Ultimately technology is about saving time (wealth is disposable time... "and nothing more!"). The things Doug mentioned, railroads, cars, telephones, airplanes, and computers are all supposed to save their customers time. Whether or not they actually do so is a question that needs to be asked but rarely is. When technologies actually create jobs does that mean they are "make-work" projects? If so, do proponents of technological progress thereby commit the make-work (closely allied to the lump-of-labor) fallacy? -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
