JOBS

JOBS

By

Fay E.A. Reid

This is in response to Robert Reich’s Inequality Media video of today (6/6/2023). As usual, I am in agreement with Professor Reich, but I feel it is incomplete. The inequality of wealth is certainly partly, even mainly due to the greed of the concentration of wealth at the top. It is also largely due to fewer monopolies controlling more and more industries.

But there are other factors. Professor Reich touched on some but I think they need more elaboration.

Education. One of the many things the authoritarian fascists are doing, and at the moment successfully, is destroying public education.  This is essential if they are to succeed in destroying our democratic Representative Republic. Educated people have the “nasty habit” of thinking, especially critically analyzing what they hear. So, to be successful the budding dictator must destroy education and replace it with an unquestioning belief system (throwing in a little hatred of ‘others’ helps too)

We can see this developing in Florida and being emulated in other States such as Alabama and Mississippi (to name only two, there are other). Ban Books. Can’t have people wasting their time reading. Burning is even better, that way they can’t sneak them into to their bedrooms to read undetected.

Whip up hatred (not distrust or dislike, absolute hatred) for anyone who doesn’t look like them.  Since DeSantis is white, that obviously applies to persons whose skin is brown, who does not speak English (or southern is acceptable) who come from Asia or South America. Cubans already in Florida are ok, because they are so anti-Castro, they don’t question the motives of the authoritarian fascists.

Then you have to turn that hatred to other white skinned people, Instill a hatred for the educated by referring to them as “elites” “libs” or anything other than American citizens.

Now they turn to people who are already marginalized because they are a small minority. Lesbians. Bisexuals, Gays, Transvestites, Queers, and gender changers.

Then add religion for the coups de grace. They must be Evangelical Christians to qualify for the inner circle. Well, a few Catholics are ok too, but absolutely no non-Christian religions.

To all these travesties we have to add innovation.  America did alright until the 80’s. In the Democratically held States, education was available to anyone who wanted and could achieve it at minimal affordable cost.  We in the middle class, and many in the laboring class, could afford to buy a home, a car, and a decent style of living.  The wealthy were still few in number but their wealth was reasonable, not obscene.

In the 80’s came the innovation that would change all. The personal computer. For those of us who purchased their first computers in the 1980’s. life changed.  I bought my first computer in 1984. It was a floppy disc Tandy, with a daisy wheel printer.  My hand writing is less legible than chicken scratch. I was a science teacher. I felt really sorry for my students as I had to hand print everything on the blackboard or overhead. The computer freed me. I could type, print, and photo copy handouts so my students didn’t have to guess what I meant.

Ok, that was a boon for me. For others it was a source of gaming. For most of the other working people, especially in offices, it was a threat. They had to learn a new language DOS.

In the factories across the country, more and more jobs became automated. More automation meant fewer jobs for those less skilled. BUT we did not spend the money necessary to adequately retrain those with fewer skills, and they fell further behind.

The result “Robert Reich’s Myths” You’re paid what you’re worth. A man earning $40 per hour on an assembly line was suddenly out of work. What we should have done, was retrain that man AND pay him while he was in training to acquire the skills necessary to maintain employment at the same relative wage. What we did was give him up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits at far less than what he was making, with the admonishment that he had to use his days looking for work.  If he went to school, he lost his unemployment payments. [I am using he, but the same treatment applied to both genders. It is just that it is easier for a woman to find work at a lower wage, than it is for a man]

Now in 2023, our workforce, including the highly skilled and educated, are facing a new threat with Artificial Intelligence. For many this is scary.

My husband and I retired in 1988. I went to work for a County Department of Social Services, first as a fiscal worker, then eligibility worker, then as an Employment Counselor and teacher. As I said it is much easier for a woman to find work at lesser pay than a man.  My husband did look for work, but at his age, and skill level, employers didn’t trust him. They thought a) he wouldn’t stay because of the lower wage, or b) he’d take their job because he was better educated and more experienced.  For some reason they never questioned me.

But as illustration of the effect of automation on a workforce, two instances. When I started in fiscal, I was given accounts payable, State reports as my desk. I already told you my handwriting is unreadable and they used paper ledgers, pencils and ten key adding machines.  A few weeks after I started the County gave the fiscal department one computer. I was the only one who knew how to use it so I took advantage. I first converted accounts payable to Lotus 123 spreadsheets, then the State reports. Within the month I had caught up 6 months of back reports and had accounts payable reports daily. So, the County bought a second computer.

Then when I finally moved to Eligibility, the County had purchased a new Computer system and all Eligibility was to be transferred to the new system.  Immediately 7 Eligibility Workers resigned or retired, they were that frightened of technology and change.

This same type of thing was happening in industries across the nation and world. People became unemployed and unemployable. At the same time the price of higher education sky rocketed.  The American government from 1981 on, did nothing to improve the lot of the bottom half (now 80%) of the people.  Those young people who persevere and receive a college education are so loaded down with debt upon finishing, they are too overworked to do anything.

So yes, we have an unequal wealth and an educated group of younger people so burdened with debt as to lose hope of ever succeeding.  We need a government responsive to their needs. The wealthy can withstand paying their fair share of the tax burden. Industry, even corporations will withstand the break up of monopolies. We just need politicians in both the Executive and Legislative Branches with the courage to preserve our Constitution, and the Civic mindedness to do the best for the Country and the people and not just to enrich themselves.

We are also tasked with a larger problem. Automation. One of the promises of automation has always been less physical labor for mankind. Ok, that’s nice. But what about the people replaced by automation (especially in the coming world of artificial intelligence.)  A basic standard of living for all humans has been suggested and is a very humanitarian gesture.  But we also have to provide for useful activities for those displaced.  During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave us the alphabet soup of jobs and activities for the unemployed, even artists had projects, We will need something similar. Homo sapiens are not designed for inactive, meaningless lives.