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April 22, 2015
The Machines Are Coming; The Machines Are Coming! Thank God!
By Mike Rivage-Seul
On Sunday, Zeynep Tufecki wrote in a NYT op-ed that "The Machines Are Coming." She's right: but they bring promise of liberation from boring jobs.
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On Sunday, Zeynep Tufecki wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "The Machines Are Coming." Hers was a warning about the devastating effect of technology on the job market. Machines have eliminated jobs across the board, she lamented -- from secretarial positions to auto workers to medical diagnosticians and college professors.
Unlike Tufecki, I see this as good news -- a promise of more free time and leisure.
In fact, many more jobs than Tufecki indicates might also be eliminated -- and probably should be. Think weapons manufacture, the bloated military, the advertising industry, call centers, insurance companies, fast food, and (above all!) Wall Street jobs connected with financial speculation. None of these occupations are truly necessary or even productive. Face it: they are mere busy work.
Still other jobs are on their way out. Remember what happened to Encyclopedia Britannica that didn't see Wikipedia coming. Think of the music industry involuntarily "downsized" by file sharing.
And what about newspapers? They are currently in crisis because of the advent free news websites like OpEdNews and Information Clearing House. They'll soon be history. Similarly "distance learning" is having its own impact on higher education as bricks and mortar campuses sun-set whether or not their trustees see the coming train wreck.
Again, all of this can be good news.
Energy industries will be especially affected. According to Jeremy Rifkinin The Empathic Civilization, new technology will soon drive climate-changing oil and dirty coal out of business too.
This is not a pipe dream. Surplus energy can already be stored in hydrogen cells. And the energy produced will soon be shared person-to-person across a "smart grid." Again, the model here is file-sharing.
The European Union's ideal is to turn every building's rooftop into a solar energy power plant.
Think of the jobs that will be eliminated as a result -- including those required by the energy wars that will be rendered superfluous.
Of course, this doesn't mean that there isn't productive work crying out to be done. Green technologies in general and public transportation are obvious needs. The number of potential jobs connected with them is substantial. But there are not nearly enough green jobs to replace the ones that have been eliminated by technology and those that should be discarded because they are environmentally destructive and morally unsustainable.
So what should be done about all of this? Here is the hopeful part. Rifkin showed the way years ago. So did Juliette Shor (The Overworked American). J.W. Smith (Economic Democracy: the Political Struggle of the Twenty-First Century) was even more articulate about the path ahead: SHARE THE WORK.
The good news is that none of us has to work that hard unless we want to. Thanks to the new technology, we could work four-hour days or three-day weeks, or for only six months a year, or every other year. And with military spending reduced by 75%, we could still make a living wage -- retiring by 40. And this is possible world-wide.
It is all now within our grasp. We just have to recognize that and get the subject on the political agenda.
No one needs to be reminded that we are entering the election season. I wonder what Hilary and Jeb think about all of this.
Be sure to ask them.
Authors Website: http://mikerivageseul.wordpress.com/
Authors Bio:
Mike Rivage-Seul is a liberation theologian and former Roman Catholic priest. His undergraduate degree in philosophy was received from St. Columban's Major Seminary in Milton Massachusetts and awarded through D.C.'s Catholic University. He received his theology licentiate from the Atheneum Anselmianum and his doctorate in moral theology (magna cum laude) from the Academia Alfonsiana in Rome where Mike studied for five years. There he also played club basketball for Eurosport and a team within Rome's Stella Azzurra professional organization. In 1972 he served for a year as coordinator of volunteers in Monsignor Ralph Beiting's Christian Appalachian Project. Then for 40 years, Mike taught theology and general studies at Berea College in Kentucky receiving its Seabury Award for excellence in teaching, Berea's highest faculty award. At Berea, Mike founded its Peace and Social Justice Studies program. He and his wife, Peggy, also organized and started the Berea Interfaith Taskforce for Peace. For years, he periodically taught liberation theology in a Latin American Studies Program in Costa Rica sponsored by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. In Costa Rica Mike and Peggy were fellows at the liberation theology research institute, the Departamento Ecumenico de Investigaciones (DEI) headed by the great Franz Hinkelammert. In Mexico, they also served as fellows and program directors in San Miguel de Allende's Center for Global Justice. Mike's studies and teaching have brought him to countries across Europe and to Cuba (on 10 occasions), Nicaragua (12 occasions), Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Israel, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Brazil where he and Peggy were associates of Paulo Freire. Mike's languages include Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. For three years he was a monthly columnist at the Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington Kentucky. He has contributed more than 400 articles to the online news source OpEdNews where he is a senior editor. He has also published in the DEI's Pasos Journal, in the National Catholic Reporter and Christianity Today. His scholarship has been cited in the New York Times. Mike has authored or edited 10 books including one of poetry and a novel based on his experiences in Cuba. His latest book is The Magic Glasses of Critical Thinking: seeing through alternative fact & fake news (Peter Lang publishers). He blogs at http://mikerivageseul.wordpress.com/ Attempting to appropriate his identity as an ordained exorcist (all Catholic priests are), Mike also reads Tarot cards. He is a lifelong golfer and Chicago Cubs fan.