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by arscan
4839 days ago
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whether we're saving time or cutting jobs It depends what you mean by "jobs". If you mean it in the headcount sense, then yes, that's bad. Good leadership should inform its employees of how technology is impacting its operations. That way employees have an opportunity to prepare and to find new ways of adding value, so they don't have to leave once their old role becomes obsolete. But if you mean "jobs" in the "having a person do this specific action" sense, then I couldn't disagree more. Progress isn't made unless jobs (in that sense) are cut. The human mind has such amazing potential and we shouldn't waste it doing things that can be easily automated. |
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We think all the time about how to automate things, but rarely or never about how to make places for other people at the feast. When it comes to distribution of surpluses, we get all vague about "progress." Why are we are so specific and concrete and active on one side, and so vague on the other?
When something is automated, we are not allocating the excess production to letting people spend time with their kids (or whatever those people want to do with it). We are cutting positions, hiring temps without benefits, hiring cheaper contractors from elsewhere... and keeping the change.
Because the little people are not defined as really part of the company, but as supplies and tools for the company's operations. From interview to layoff, they are at best a necessary evil, held at arms' length. The only people who are really part of the company are the powerful ones, who allocate the increases to themselves because they had the vision and the capital and they are the only ones who deserve it. And assuming a just world, those who are excluded and may have trouble finding new jobs deserve what they're getting as well.
Good leadership is leadership of humans, and incorporates concern for the humans being led. Just having lots of capital and using it in any way that gives you profit is not leadership, it is merely ownership.
It's not bad to be wealthy, nor is it bad to grow the pie. The problem is that interests are so profoundly misaligned that "progress" means allocating a higher and higher proportion of all surpluses to a ruthless subset of the wealthy. If we wanted more progress, we'd work on aligning interests better.