In this regard, programmers are their own worst enemy. Most "innovations" in software are hardly that. They amount to just a few added functions and some changes in syntax that basically isolate the programmer further and further from the underlying processors.
By coming up with a supposedly new language or paradigm every five or so years, new college graduates benefitted at the expense of seasoned programmers.
Now the people that are benefitting are H1B programmers that come out of Java or XML or ??? mills.
If managers knew that it was just a matter of learning a new syntax, they would keep their seasoned employees and allow them to retrain while maintaining their vast experience in solving real problems.
Unfortunately management is ignorant in this regard, and looks for things like "2 years Java" on a resume rather than "10 years combined Fortran, C, C++".
I'm one of those sorry anti-capitalist bastards that works to live, rather than lives to work. I guess in a theoretical perfect capitalism all of those who don't live to work will be thrown on the trash heap of history.
I may see you someday on that trash heap when you have to call in sick one day or take your son or daughter to the doctor's office and you get replaced by a more dependable H1B indentured servant.