![]() ![]() The Amazon workforce has been substantially growing as online retail has increased, but their hiring policy is not compensating for the hemmorhaging of jobs in the retail sector that began to be felt around 2017. Starting out in 1994 as a “basement bookstore” online, Jeff Bezos gradually built a giant business empire, recognizing that Americans would become more and more willing to prefer the convenience and low prices of online retail to the traditional brick-and-mortar retail. ![]() The fact that automation turns out to be a moving target is the entire business model of the Amazon empire. Given that automation in other parts of the economy is continuing apace, there seems to be no labor shortage ahead.įurthermore, companies seem to be engaged in what Janet Vertesi considers “pre-automation”, or outsourcing tasks while training algorithms and machines to automate the task at a later stage. The risk to the platform is minimal, because there is usually only one or two platforms for a service (the others get bought up by a Silicon Valley behemoth), and there are millions of contractors competing for contracts. Loss of reputation could bar the contractor from the platform and exclude them from any potential revenue from that platform. providers of the service, not for the rich and powerful platforms. If things go wrong, like the car breaks down or internet does not work temporarily the loss of income and reputation is exclusively for the contractors, i.e. The onset of algorithmic platforms like Uber, Upwork or Mechanical Turk have opened up an online marketplace, where independent contractors do work, often for minimal levels of compensation and no job security. Any McDonalds worker is aware that even though they work for a franchise, the specific rules about what and how to sell burgers is determined by corporate headquarters. The fissuring results in low wages, poor working conditions and create temporary, precarious jobs without tenure or security. the increased reliance on contractors and subcontractors to do tasks, which were once considered core business operation. The second scenario partly accounts for the not yet fully devastating mass unemployment, which is about what David Weil called the “fissuring of the workplace”, i.e. The automation wave has been real, and there are many losers. The fact that this is not already happening is reflected in the increased suicide and depression in the countryside, when the manufacturing jobs left and new jobs of similar quality were no longer available. ![]() But if that time comes we have to think really hard about how to provision people with the income they need to survive. the mass displacement of jobs is imminent and we won’t have enough work for people to do. No social scientist or market analyst can genuinely predict whether “this time is different”, i.e. I have more to say on the latter category a little later. Home health aides, teaching aides, social workers, nurses, security guards as well as the big category of administrative/ managerial services are picking up the slack. ![]() So far the robots have not taken most jobs, and we have created many more especially in the caring parts of the service economy. Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign is about the universal basic income, the freedom dividend, based on what he sees as the impending doom of mass unemployment because of self-driving trucks, delivery drones, automated call centers, automated food preparation and service, automated accounting, legal work, medical diagnostics and on and on throughout the economy. Arntz and co-authors think that much fewer jobs are endangered, i.e. The first scenario is most clearly enunciated by people like Frey and Osborne in their study proclaiming that 47% of jobs could be automated. I argue that the goal in society must be to realize a full unemployment/ no-job utopia. better than status quo), but it would not be the best and most ideal solution given the capacity of current technological progress. The last point might sound like it is good and, indeed, it would be a Pareto improvement to the status quo (i.e. (3) Bullshit job dystopia and (3.5) full employment dystopia. (2) Low wage/ poor working conditions/ precarious job dystopia. ClarkeĪs I see it, there are three and a half forms of job dystopias that exist and continue to make lives miserable for most people in contemporary capitalist society. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system. The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. ![]()
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