Bribing companies into keeping surplus people in fake jobs isn’t that different from expanding governmental bureaucracy to keep people in fake jobs. Both strategies are definitely better than guaranteed basic income because fake jobs allow people not to be marginalized. These workers aren’t pushed into an underclass, their children aren’t forever robbed of an opportunity to be part of productive society, people are occupied and less likely to turn to addiction to cope with the shame of uselessness.
Of course, a much better strategy would be to try to integrate the surplus people into the new economy and help them stop being surplus. But that’s impossible in a consumerist society where everybody expects to be babied and pandered to.
Clarissa's Blog 
“a much better strategy would be to try to integrate the surplus people into the new economy”
The “new economy” is not going to be about jobs (in the sense of work that has to be done).
From what I see and read I think two job fields that are growing are package delivery (delivery trucks stop on the short street I live on a dozen times a day and there’s no convenient way for drones to replace them) and personalized/artisanal services (rather than impersonal/mass-production services).
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I hear that truck drivers are the first in line to be automated out of existence.
There is a growing abyss between those who are being displaced from work by automation and those whose time is so valuable that they have to squeeze every drop of productivity out of themselves, learn to answer emails when they get up to pee at 2 am, count every second of their time. It’s absolutely possible to build a bridge between these two categories. But the first step is to name the problem. And who will be doing that?
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“I hear that truck drivers are the first in line to be automated out of existence.”
I’m not talking about truck drivers, I mean the delivery companies that bring thing from online shoping and leave them at people’s doors. That, in Poland at least and probably most of Europe, can’t be outsourced to drones (unless you teach them to press in entrance codes to buildings and navigate stairs and/or elevators).
There’s kind of an attempt to establish pick up stations (either manned offices or lockers) but they’re not that successful so far.
” those whose time is so valuable that they have to squeeze every drop of productivity out of themselves … count every second of their time.”
That’s a sucker’s game. By the time some gets to that stage all that they’ve accomplished is to make themselves overworked and underpaid. No one is such a special exceptional snowflake that a lot of what they do can’t be done by others.
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“By the time some gets to that stage all that they’ve accomplished is to make themselves overworked and underpaid. ”
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“I’m seeing crowds of people who are extremely highly paid and in enormous demand”
Part of being in demand is being able to pick and choose what you do. If someone who’s in demand is busy every second of the day that’s because that’s the way they like it.
“The stratification is real and it will only grow if people don’t wake up”
I see no effort from any political corner to wake people up about it. If anything I see enormous efforts made by politicians on different continents across the political spectrum to keep people from realizing what’s going on.
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“If anything I see enormous efforts made by politicians on different continents across the political spectrum to keep people from realizing what’s going on.”
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A hundred years ago, my teacher told us kids about the author Alexandre Dumas, who had his house full of friends, sort of parasiting on him To make them feel less bad about that, he cave them fake jobs, sinecures, like reading the thermometer and reporting the temperature. I’ve tried to find the source, but the best I have is a text fragment from a google Books hit, not copyable as text.
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This is a fascinating story.
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“Integrate the surplus people into the new economy.” This has been the government response. “Retraining programs” at community colleges or wherever.
Two problems with this strategy: First, the supply of jobs is shrinking. People are retrained for alternative jobs that do not exist, or pay much lower wages than the lost jobs.
Second, displaced workers tend to be older workers with limited ability to learn new skills. If you’re training a 55-year-old assembly line worker and a 23-year-old for the same new job requiring two years of technical training, who do you think is going to master the training faster and succeed in the new job? BINGO, the former assembly line worker is at a huge competitive disadvantage.
I’m sure many leaders in government and industry recognize the magnitude of the jobs problem. Outsourcing is only part of the problem. Robotization and intelligent computers are replacing jobs for humans at a rate that will outstrip creation of jobs.
As Cliff said in the first comment above, the new economy is NOT going to be about jobs, at least not in any way that we are accustomed to. Leaders haven’t figured out a solution. The masses of people are only slowly becoming aware of the dilemma.
Maybe it’s best to remain in denial for now. When the masses realize the full extent and implications of job loss, we might have a wave of panic and hysteria. The social upheaval could be of historic proportions.
Blaming the underemployed and unemployed victims of disappearing jobs is rubbing salt in the wound. It’s only going to make the problem worse. BREXIT and Trump might just be the beginning.
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I agree that there’s very little anybody can do for most of the 50-year-old assembly line workers. But at least their children and grandchildren should be told that sitting tuere, waiting for the lifestyles their elders keep being nostalgic for is a waste of time.
The very idea of being retrained for a specific job belongs to the past. This doesn’t work anymore, it’s gone. It’s not about learning a skill and selling it for the next 40 years. Now it’s all about the capacity to change, the capacity to make your persona attractive and energizing.
Retraining people for jobs is, indeed, a waste of time. Educating them to expand their arsenal of life strategies, that’s what is needed.
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