I think in large part, automation/technology has made most work unimportant. I mean, remember how people used to have secretaries? Now that's a luxury for only the elite. And it makes sense, when you have email and voicemail and so on, you don't really need a secretary. Nice to have, sure, but that's a job that technology has pretty much marginalized.
I wish I had a reference, but I remember reading a story about a steel mill that has like 1/5th the workforce it did 30 years ago, but is producing the same volume. That's one example, but I really don't think it's isolated. Everything is getting more efficient. There's this notion that more efficiency always creates more opportunity, but I find that idea suspect. Sometimes, sure, but at a certain point, sometimes things are just good enough.
Even knowledge work is susceptible. On one hand, it's great that things like programming are becoming a lot easier, but on the other hand, if your programmers are 10x more productive in Ruby than they are in C... well you probably don't need as many programmers. Remember the great recession? I think one of the interesting things that happened there is that a lot of jobs got eliminated out of necessity... and then they never really came back. The popular opinion is to blame a weak economy and I'm sure that's a factor, but I think a lot of it was, companies got rid of those people and then realized they didn't really need them.
The problem is, society hasn't caught up. So everyone feels the need to prove they're doing /something/, and firing someone is an awful experience, so I think most people are employed because they have to be employed, and because their employers don't really want to have to cut them loose unless they have to.
Even startups aren't really immune to this. Sure they have to be lean, but how many startup exist because the founders think they need to be doing, well, something.
Nucor Steel. High tech and highly engaged employees driven by compensation heavily based on meeting production goals keeps employees highly motivated to stay engaged.
I worked there as a temp in college when they would shut down the mill for 2 weeks for maintenance. On one of these, a billet melted in a reheat furnace, throwing off the schedule and threatening the ability to get back to rolling steel. As soon as the temperature in the furnace dropped below 150F they wrapped us up in heavy clothing, made wooden soles for our boots so the rubber wouldn't melt and sent us in with jackhammers to overhaul the furnace. They were very determined on meeting goals.
The employees got crazy good bonuses that at times exceeded their base salaries, all dependent on shipping steel.
"However, if they are late to work they lose their bonus for the day. And if they miss a day of work during the week they lose their bonus for the entire week."
Sounds like a recipe for the (alleged) effects of the medieval justice system.[1]
[1] The punishment for murder is death. The punishment for stealing a chicken is death. Get caught stealing a chicken? Try to kill everyone who has ever offended you.
The economy never actually recovered from the crash of 2001, is the root of the problem. A crash caused by technologists over promising and under delivering on a "new economy".
> I think in large part, automation/technology has made most work unimportant.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, though I find it sad that most people think it's a bad thing. In most cases, at least the way I see it, automation intends to do away with menial (human) work.
If I had to describe the true social value of technology, I'd say it resides in its ability to let us concentrate on more interesting problems, put our efforts somewhere else, for the greater benefit.
But there seems to be a ruling set of values in our society dictating that we have to have one job, between such and such hours, and that the more you do so, the more you can have a "career". This is a gross simplification, but I honestly think it isn't that far from the truth. We've intertwined time and value so poorly that we think time itself has value, whatever we do with it (looking at you crippling bureaucracy).
In an (my) ideal society, people who don't need to produce more work at any given time would add value to other areas of society by achieving different tasks for different people or learning something new.
I'd like to see more architects, electricians, plumbers, car makers etc. go into schools and show kids what they do, show University students what their purely academic professors can't. I'd like to see more theoretical mathematicians learn about the wonders of growing vegetables. I'd like to see people who generate and get actual value from others, rather than constantly proxy it through money, idle time and displays of self-importance.
I find our society tends to formalize everything, and that of course includes jobs, even when it's not necessary. The intent seems to be able to measure everything from productivity to worth, even though both these things are themselves penalized by the activity of measuring/observing them. I'm a fierce advocate of science and technology, but that certainly doesn't mean we're compelled to measure everything in controlled conditions.
I wish I had a reference, but I remember reading a story about a steel mill that has like 1/5th the workforce it did 30 years ago, but is producing the same volume. That's one example, but I really don't think it's isolated. Everything is getting more efficient. There's this notion that more efficiency always creates more opportunity, but I find that idea suspect. Sometimes, sure, but at a certain point, sometimes things are just good enough.
Even knowledge work is susceptible. On one hand, it's great that things like programming are becoming a lot easier, but on the other hand, if your programmers are 10x more productive in Ruby than they are in C... well you probably don't need as many programmers. Remember the great recession? I think one of the interesting things that happened there is that a lot of jobs got eliminated out of necessity... and then they never really came back. The popular opinion is to blame a weak economy and I'm sure that's a factor, but I think a lot of it was, companies got rid of those people and then realized they didn't really need them.
The problem is, society hasn't caught up. So everyone feels the need to prove they're doing /something/, and firing someone is an awful experience, so I think most people are employed because they have to be employed, and because their employers don't really want to have to cut them loose unless they have to.
Even startups aren't really immune to this. Sure they have to be lean, but how many startup exist because the founders think they need to be doing, well, something.
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