CS 349 Contemporary Issues in
Computer Science
Alan Cline
Income Disparity in the Face of Labor Displacement by
Technology
Or
What Happens When/If There Aren’t Any Jobs Left
for People?
In his essay, “Manna”, Marshall Brain presents two very different scenarios for society in a “post jobs” era. Both scenarios share one important theme: The “post jobs” era doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to develop. That time can be used to continue down the “jobs = resources” path that defines the lion’s share of today’s economy. Or it can be used to define a new path that allocates resources to the world’s citizens even when they do not need to work.
In his essay, “Can the Middle Class Be Saved”, Don Peck describes a jobs trend that is already happening in the U.S. He argues that many of the relatively low skill U.S. jobs that have disappeared since the current recession began are not going to come back as the economy improves. They have been replaced in some cases by foreign labor and in others by increased productivity that technology has brought. He sees this as a trend that has been happening for years. It was simply masked in the run up to 2008 by the construction boom that created a whole raft of new jobs.
1. A
common response to the observation that low skill jobs are disappearing is,
“More education – let’s send more kids to
college”. Do you think that
we can solve the problem in this way?
You may want to talk about relatively short term solutions, as well as
solutions that would have to play out over the longer term as described by
Marshall Brain. Explain your
reasoning.
2. Briefly describe a “post jobs” economy that you would like to see develop. You may describe something like Terrafoam or something like the Australia Project or something completely different.
3. What would we have to start doing in the near future in order to make the economy you describe in question 1 happen?
4. If we stick our heads in the sand and do nothing about this issue for the next few decades, what do you think is likely to happen? In particular, do you think that Peck is right? Why?
You should be able sketch answers to all these questions in 2 or 3 pages. Number your sections 1 - 4, corresponding to the four questions above. Each section should have a clear thesis statement.