320 million Americans -- exactly how many of them are capable of providing really useful labor? And how much actual labor does society really need??
I think (like it or not) "work" is not going to be be an option for a large chunk of society. We really do need to think about social and psychological aspects of that. If nothing else, we should look to Ferguson and ask, "Are a lot of bored, angry people with nothing useful to do a good thing to have?"
I support the idea of exploring what to do with people who are flat-out unemployed. Forever.
When I was a kid in the mid-60’s I would wonder what people would do for a living when robots did everything, even building and maintaining the robots.
I figured out at around the turn of the century that THIS kind of stuff is what we would do. Basically, most of what people do for money is pointless and irrelevant, but at least they are doing SOMETHING to earn their pay. And the only people doing anything with real purpose are the self employed.
This is ignoring the spiritual implications, of course.
One of the benefits of retirement is that I’ll no longer have to sit through (maybe) boring sessions and break out sessions”, “team building”, “focus groups”, “diversity instructions”, inclusiveness training”, “gender focus”, “quality circles”, etc., etc., etc. That is unless social security somehow finds a way to implement such BS in order for you to receive your SS check. Glad to be retired? You betcha.”
Amen brother.
The only thing I miss re the above was the fun of throwing reality into these bs sessions/discussions.
The company, I spent close to 3 decades with, had a little over a 1,000 sales reps. The reality there was about 100 of us carried the rest of the reps/the company re actual sales.
Most of us in that 10% developed a hard skin and a sense of reality that let our supervisors and theirs and the top dogs, know that without us the company would go belly up. My private discussion with the flag raisers, was simple: Don’t po us/me nor make u/mes depressed. Leave us alone to do our jobs. If you don’t leave us alone, you will not have a job. That worked for close to 30 years, until I got a great early retirement offer. About half of the good 100 reps took the early retirement.
Shortly after the first batch of the good reps left, the home office got rid of the good people inside, who worked with the good reps. One day the good home office people showed up for work and were met at the security gate. Then they were told to drive to another parking lot, check in with guards at the gate and stay in their cars. Shortly after they checked in they were escorted by security guards into trailers, to receive a Kinko’ paper box with their personal belongings and sign papers that they were no longer with the company.
Then, they were escorted by the security people, back to their vehicles and led out of the parking lot. The local police had set up no parking zones 2-3 blocks from the entrances. So if they wanted to talk to a fellow fired peer, they had to drive down the street into a not very nice neighborhood.
All of those escorted off the property, had been to several if not dozens of the above require motivational training programs. It really helped them. (Sarcasm)
Several hundred of the remaining sales reps were terminated plus a division of about 200 reps, who never should have been hired. We joked that they were the inadequate PC sales division. They were the equal opportunity hires. Their training was basically the Rah/Rah bs.
More massive cuts in the sales force followed on a regular basis. The few good reps still there ended up with impossible quotas and bs from psycho managers. They either left or became depressed and worthless sales reps.
The company in spite of vast capital resources closed its doors in a little over a decade after many of us left. The good reps who stayed carried the losers until they had enough and left.
Hey! We’re back to THE PURPOSE OF LIFE AND WORK DEBATE.
This fact has been far more disruptive to the economy and our society than commentators give it credit for.