To Protect Jobs Is To Neuter Precious Human Potential
Protectionists and neo-luddites invariably claim that compassion demands we protect and preserve jobs, regardless of how economically inefficient they may be, lest many are left out of the economy. But assuming that many cannot perform tasks that a productive economy requires is not showing compassion. It is demonstrating condescension. It is assuming that human potential is limited, rather than boundless.
When politicians and others complain that “good” jobs are disappearing, they actually mean semi-skill jobs – traditionally well-paying jobs one can be hired for straight out of high school. In fact, good jobs – well-paying, challenging and stimulating – are more abundant than ever. There are more than a half-million open technology-related jobs in the United States, according to the Department of Labor. The U.S. economy is seeing double-digit percentage increases in jobs for software developers and computer systems analysts, web developers and computer network architects. With a flood of high-skill jobs, of course, comes a flood of low-skill ones, as many are hired to sell goods and services to those who have the money to pay for them.
The jobs that are disappearing for the most part are not high-skill or low-skill, but semi-skill. Routine production functions, susceptible to automation, were at one time the core of manufacturing. Today, they represent less than 7 percent of all manufacturing jobs, according to the Congressional Research Service. What we’re seeing is not overall job elimination, but job churn. Instead of being part of a long line of people packing boxes, a factory worker directs robots to perform the task. Instead of helping to unload a cargo ship by hand, a dockyard worker manages a mechanical lifting arm. Job creation is not a conveyor belt, with new jobs constantly being added to existing ones. Rather, it is a treadmill, in which old jobs are constantly being eliminated as new ones are created. Job shedding is an inescapable fact of creative destruction, for three reasons:
First, many new jobs perform the same tasks as old ones, but more efficiently. Obviously, that makes some old jobs superfluous. But the enhanced productivity also creates additional wealth for many consumers – which results in new jobs.
Second, many new technologies spawn new services. If we didn’t have smart phones, we wouldn’t need apps developers. If we didn’t have web designers, we wouldn’t need web masters. For that matter, if people weren’t hunched all day over a computer, fewer would need physical trainers, aerobics instructors, or chiropractors.
Third, if we didn’t eliminate some old jobs, we wouldn’t have enough people to perform the newly created ones. The 20th century started with about 40 percent of the working population employed in agriculture. Today, that would be the equivalent of 65 million people. The century began with 5 percent of all working Americans employed in the railroad industry. The equivalent of that today would be more than eight million people. Job churn has freed up people to perform more complex tasks that yield greater productivity and better pay. Today, there are over 6 million scientists and engineers in the United States, according to the Congressional Research Service. There are over 660,000 physicians, 11 times as many as in 1860. There couldn’t be that many if more people were still tied up working the farms or the railroads.
There is a hierarchy of tasks, and humankind is climbing it. Is that a bad thing? Or does it represent a step up, like the migration from the farms to the cities, or from buggies and trains to planes and automobiles? Recognizing the value of the evolution of work is often seen as callous. But the true callousness is clinging to the jobs we happen to have now. That is saying they are the only well-paying jobs some people can perform. That is not valuing humanity, it is devaluing it. If we had embraced that attitude centuries ago, we would still be growing our own food, building our own homes, and making our own clothes – with few available to perform surgery, design modern infrastructure, or develop software. And if we embrace that attitude today, we would be saying that human beings are unable to do anything that a robot can’t – instead of adding value only a human being can impart.
We are wealthier today because we have consistently improved our ability to leverage technology and make the most of people’s potential. That leads to the shedding of many jobs, even as it spawns new ones. Rather than trying to keep people in an occupational box, improved productivity maximizes their ability to break out of traditional ways of doing things, earn a better living and create greater wealth. People are an asset to be maximized, not a liability to be sheltered.
