RatcliffeBlog - Mitch Thinking Out Loud

Is Technology Killing Jobs?

Joi Ito has a pointer to a Slashdot discussion about this O'Reilly article on the impact of computers on the work opportunities available for people today.

My personal opinion is that short term quarter-by-quarter capitalism can't possibly think long term enough to deal with many of the larger social issues. I don't think it's just about creating jobs. I think issues such as the environment, poverty, privacy, even computer architectures defy short term profits/gains thinking sometimes. I think it's a good idea for computer professionals to be socially responsible and think long term whenever possible. (See CPSR and EFF ).

I think the idea of creating jobs directly by writing software for small businesses is a bit complex. I think that "good jobs" come from innovation and new industries. Many old industries such as the restaurant business are rather zero-sum. I think that increasing the public domain and the commons (spectrum, computer software, creative content...) is the best way to allow people to innovate and be entrepreneurial without being shackled in the well-funded proprietary world. I think that focusing on creating and sharing intellectual wealth in the commons is the best way to create jobs.

Computers do eliminate some jobs every day, but that's been true of every technology along the way, since someone stopped carrying hay up a hill and, instead, the farmer got a cart to haul 10 times as much. But the question of what will people do with the time their replaced-labors create is an important one. I agree with Joi that quarter-by-quarter capitalism can't even deal with these questions. However, I think quarter-by-quarter capitalism does more to destroy jobs than any technology, because it is so shortsighted. Short-term changes in demand are often met with permanent reductions in employment, costing companies years worth of investment in individual workers and loyalty-building. We need a form of organization that keeps networks of contributors together (and lets them go where they want to go) even as the shape of business processes change.

Robert Scoble has a few thoughts on this today, as well:

The new world, though, will have more customers than our Windows XP-based one does today. It'll have people doing new things, and people building new worlds.

Anyway, one little sense that there's still immense opportunity out there: my son Patrick told me his school in Petaluma does not have a computer lab and the teachers there don't use computers or have one on their desks. That's in stark contrast to the private school that he attended in rich Los Altos. So, why is it important for "rich private" schools to have computers, but "public" schools don't?

Any question where the future leaders will come from? Any question why parents will shell out $6000 a year to send their kids to private schools?

See what I think about this issue in my previous posting about the Bush "economic policy," which amounts to gutting our ability to invest together in public resources, like schools.

Amidst the prosperity of the late 20th century, when the basic services available in advanced economies are sufficient to support widespread risk-taking, people are able to undertake entrepreneurial ventures as an alternative to regular employment. Yet, paradoxically, many families must undertake second or third jobs to provide a sufficient income. Both these trends point to the end of single-job workforces, a society where connections are forged by semi-free agent workers to bridge companies and industries through the exercise of plural talents. To attract and retain these liberated workers, companies will have to be heard and have a fulfilling role in corporate life and governance.

An organizational model that supports these new workers will combine the features of a partnership and a polity, an organized group under a consensual form of governance. It will also invite the customer into the governance of the companies that serve them, increasing dialogue with the market to provide vastly improved efficiency in reaching an optimal social outcome. This form of economic collaboration is sufficiently flexible to acknowledge a wider range of costs and benefits than a bottom-line oriented business. It allows investments to support social and economic goals based on a deliberative process, as evidenced by the appearance of social investing, collective ownership arrangements, and non-governmental organizations, which are treated as the equals of government in international venues. As companies expand beyond the borders of individual nations or as networks of independent workers form transnational partnerships, the emergent polity business model will facilitate an environment of dialogue and decision-making that incorporates broadly defined goals and criteria for success. The realization that society is information-dependent (as it has always been, though previous forms of critical information were mythical, religious or related to fungible resources) will radically alter the idea of the organization, forcing open the boundaries of the corporation to bring ideas and analysis to bear from many sources that cannot be permanently employed.

I don't understand Joi's comments about restaurant investment or other labor-intensive companies being "zero-sum," except as a general denigration of the value of labor itself, and I don't think that is what he means. Joi eats at too many good restaurants not to recognize the skill and art of food preparation and service. Code is one form of value, but so is an understanding of the interaction of spices and seafood, to name just one of the things people do that creates value in the economy that has very little or nothing to do with computing.

Ultimately, work will come from recognizing the value of individuals to the richness of our lives. Nerds contribute a lot, especially in the venues that Joi and others in this blogomowhatsit experience every day. That doesn't mean everyone will be cutting code in the future -- it would be like having a world made up of only auto mechanics.

Investing in creating systems of support and value distribution are perhaps even more powerful than writing software. Software that ties the individual contributor to the economy into global systems of value--software for small business--can have a huge impact. We just shouldn't make the mistake of measuring that impact only in the aggregate. If the individual is the basic measure of society, which I think is the case, we have to change lives one at a time with the tools and educational services facilitated by the Net.

Posted by Mitch Ratcliffe at September 30, 2003 09:52 AM | TrackBack