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The issues you are addressing here, downsizing and the automation of previously manual tasks, seem to me to be not so much related to people having problems with technological advancement specifically but instead with change in general.
I see your point, but would argue that most of the change we have seen taking place in the working environment of the late 20th/early 21st century has been brought about through technological advances. Especially the field of communication technology, where advances mean that now we are never out of telephone range of our employer and able (in some cases required) to respond to mail at the click of a button.
Consider also the speed with which these changes were brought about. Ten years ago the internet, e-mail, mobile phones, fax machines and pda's were either still science fiction or in their infancy. Now they're everywhere. Previous technological advances were slower in their assimilation into everyday life, and therefore allowed people to adjust their lifestyles at a rate that percluded the mass-alienation we see today.
Throughout the history of industrialization, the introduction of new technology has always led to two things - disruption of workers in outmoded jobs, and the creation of large numbers of new jobs that need to be filled
Not so in the modern world. The problem with the modern technology that looks set to replace the worker is that it's production and maintenance is either also automated to a high degree or requires a higher level of education/specialisation that only a few individuals possess. Whereas with past technological advances, say the steam engine, more jobs would have been created (mining coal, hand-made construction, etc) the modern technology is manufactured in streamlined production facilities that require less and less human input, or use human input as an alternative form of robotisation, as Sine pointed out.
It strikes me as quite a pessimistic view to suggest that people are in general so conservative and inflexible as to be unable to cope with the rate of change in modern society.
When you look at studies made of the psychology of the masses, the general consensus is that people are inherently conservative. The younger generation of course seems to be proving this point wrong. The speed with which items such as mobile phones and home computers have been taken up could be used to prove that consumers are less conservative than previously thought. But I would argue that these things have become essential to modern life and are therefore puchased as a means of keeping up-to-date.
I would suggest that, for the continued development of society, it is necessary that people be periodically displaced from their occupations. And I think that it's a good thing that people have to prove their worth in the workplace or lose their jobs - you increase efficiency by eliminating redundant jobs, and that increase in efficiency benefits the society as a whole.
But what do the people who have been displaced from their jobs do? The point I am trying to make is that the continued technological change results in a progressive decrease in the number of jobs available to the workforce, both blue- and white-collar. Yes, OK, the growth of companies through more efficient operation could lead to better developments in shorter time. But at the same time we now have a displaced workforce who lack the capital to partake of this shiny new future and lack the training to relocate to another area of work. |
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