Second, America’s solvency inflection point is coinciding with a technological one. Thanks to Internet diffusion, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and the shift from laptops and desktops to hand-held iPads and iPhones, technology is destroying older, less skilled jobs that paid a decent wage at a faster pace than ever while spinning off more new skilled jobs that pay a decent wage but require more education than ever.Um, so . . . wait, what? iPhones are destroying jobs? How? Why? Where? "I'm sorry, Mr. Jones. With the advent of the iPad, we no longer need a CPA in receivables." Huh? Cloud computing is destroying jobs? Social networking? What is this man talking about?
Don't worry. These are rhetorical questions. The teleology of economic liberalism naturally encompasses an historical narrative arc in which "technology," which could historically be taken as a synonym for automation, displaces manual labor. Some new employment comes from tending the new machines, but the rest comes in the form of, let's see, how wouold a neoliberal put it, "spinning off more new skilled jobs that pay a decent wage but require more education than ever"--in effect, from creating new layers of managerial bureaucracy and engaging the credentialing sector, the colleges and universities and professional associations and job retraining programs and so on, in the great game of gatekeeping. Thus: "skills."
But iPads aren't taking the place of workers on assembly lines; they aren't writing code on their own; their portability doesn't fundamentally alter the amount of human labor required to design a bridge, let alone a, uh, an exotic financial instrument. Cloud computing is a neat phrase, and I am a big fan of Google Docs, but it is hardly the conceptual or practical revolution that our editorialist believes. Do you work in an office? Is your computer networked? You've been "cloud computing" in a fashion since the nineties.
The notion, above-proposed, that the advent of some new consumer electronics, or whatever, renders people economically obsolete is nothing more or less than a program of disinformation designed to wring further concessions from employees. Code words: skills, flexibility, education. Although superficially concerned about a lack of decently remunerative work, Friedman is really pimping for a system whereby work is more volatile, employees more dependent on the "will" of employers, and wholesale deprivations of livelihood can be justified anytime because of the release of a new gamepack for Wii.
Also, this is funny:
You still don’t sense our politicians are saying, “Wait a minute; stop everything; we have got to work together.” Don’t these people have 401k plans of their own and kids worried about jobs?LOL, no.
21 comments:
Gad damn it IOZ, you bastard
I was just going to write a post on this. We just can't seem to keep up with you over at SMBIVA, and Al has already used up the weekly quota of IOZ links.
Dean Baker also has a thorough debunking of this article up:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/does-thomas-friedman-have-to-talk-to-qsenior-economic-policy-makersq-to-get-so-many-things-wrong
Friedman is just nuts, but I'm thinking that Dean Baker might be a slightly different variety from the same Planters can.
Laugh all you like, but I just got finished watching season one of The Sandbaggers, a 1979 British drama about office politics where the "office" just happens to be MI6. The protagonist, Neil Burnside, has a fantastically cruel relationship with his secretary (the "P.A. to D-Ops"). Watching the show, however, I marveled at how much of the secretary's role could be filled by Microsoft Outlook in this century.
My point: thirty years from now, people might be using apps in the cloud to leverage their synergies across global boundaries and market their, something something, multiplying explosivity!
@Anonymous: Dean Baker might be a loon, but he gets a lifetime pass for me for helping to popularize the epigram "the stock market is not the home team."
How is Dean Baker a loon?
I'm curious
What is this man talking about?
A bunch of people lost their jobs. A bunch of other people are (temporarily) bilking marks by claiming to be "social media consultants". Therefore social media is destroying jobs. QED.
These new jobs are not actually particularly skilled, nor do they necessarily require more education. (Fuck you, SEO consultants. I could train a monkey to do what you do.) They just require more of a willingness to be a both a massive bullshitter and a shameless whore simultaneously. Unfortunately, some of us still have a modicum of self-respect...
what exactly are "skilled jobs" and "less skilled jobs"?
Baker was one of the few economists to openly and repeatedly predict the housing collapse (as early as 2002 if I remember right), therefore he is a "loon".
Nony 10:59
Customizing myspace pages is a skilled job requiring years of education. Designing metal molds for heavy manufacturing, however, a monkey could do...
Dean Baker: "Germany always ran a trade surplus. That is the most basic measure of a country's competitiveness: foreigners are buying its goods."
That sounds like the Pat Buchanan School of Economics.
Uh, what?
Can you please explain how that sounds like the Pat Buchanan school of economics?
How is Dean Baker a nut or a loon?
you're nuts if you think you can up and change a society like that, or from that. that's the whole fucking point, man.
Bears repeating someplace or other.
great point...
On Twitter, Atrios recently made the bizarre claim that Ross Douthat was on the path to becoming the NYTimes' worst columnist ever. A paper that employs both Tom Friedman and David Brooks! Unbelievable.
Great post, but minor quibble: cloud computing, while certainly a neat phrase, does also actually mean something.
Computer networks went from client machines connecting to mainframes, to client machines connecting to servers, and now we are in the middle of a transition to client machines connecting to the cloud.
Biggest difference, from the perspective of jobs, skills, and shit like that, is that the networks powered by the cloud are maintained by fewer people and often don't include an in-house network administrator. I assume that is what he is talking about, though -- as is often the case with this ass-hat -- it is hard to be sure.
Lucid,
I am (slightly)curious if that is what Friedman means by skilled/unskilled laborers because the exact opposite is the trend in the labor pool where it's easier to get a blue collar "unskilled" job than it is a managerial class"skilled" job.
@Ted Stein; minor quibble with the minor quibble: Amazon, for a single example, employs thousands to work on this stuff. All new jobs. Using a cloud is non-trivial so perhaps the missing admin is actually replaced by two developers or an entire office of contractors. You are implying there are fewer jobs from the situation. Citation required. I don't actually think there is any reliable / industry wide data available about this so I'm playing devil's advocate. The point being. Your guess isn't data and IOZ's point is valid: a local computer connects to remote one--outsourcing it doesn't change what it is.
Good post. More "economy" talk please.
"but the rest comes in the form of, let's see, how wouold a neoliberal put it(?)"
Well the answer is obviously not "more leisure".
This should all blow over in six months.
Your Friend,
Thomas
Increasing productivity puts people out of work. That's a tautology (whether an iPad actually increases productivity is a separate question).
However, the solution to that isn't more and better education. If you need fewer people to get a job done (the very definition of improved productivity), more educated people just means more competition for high-paying jobs. This means they can depress the wages of the last people in the country who make a decent living (other than politicians and bankers, of course).
Which is the point, of course. The appropriate response to improved productivity is to shorten the work or reduce the retirement age, without reducing wages. This is what civilization did from, oh, about 8000 BCE to WWII (in fits and starts, granted). But the fact that reducing the work week isn't even on the table, while increasing the retirement age is, tells you all you need to know about what was the point of The Moustache's article.
IOZ's larger point is valid, and I agree with it. But cloud computing is either misunderstood or misrepresented:
Do you work in an office? Is your computer networked? You've been "cloud computing" in a fashion since the nineties.
No. In the nineties we had (and many offices today still have) local servers. These local server all needed to be configured/maintained by a human. Now the local servers are vanishing and getting replaced by the cloud(s). Those servers that power the cloud still need to be configured by a human but there are fewer servers.
The average local system administrator is losing her job in the deal.
New jobs do appear at Google, IBM, Rackspace, and Amazon. But they are fewer jobs and with different skill sets. My company used to employ a system administrator, but now uses the cloud has no need for one. This is a trend.
http://www.zdnet.com/news/hp-cloud-computing-will-cut-dull-it-jobs/196553
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