Economic possibilities for ourselves By Robert Skidelsky December 20, 2019 – Project Syndicate

Although we have not yet reached the point where automation threatens to displace vast swaths of the labor force, a narrative of techno-disruption will continue to frame debates about work, , and economy policy. That narrative should make allowance not just for the future of work, but also for the possibility of .

The most depressing feature of the current The other fear factor is the increasing explosion in robot-apocalypse literature is that precariousness of labor – though this it rarely transcends the world of work. Almost concern is seemingly belied by headline every day, news articles appear detailing some statistics suggesting that is at a new round of layoffs. In the broader debate, historic low. The problem is that an economy at there are apparently only two camps: those who “full ” now contains a large believe that automation will usher in a world of penumbra of what economist Guy enriched for all, and those who fear it will Standing calls the “”: under-employed make most of the workforce redundant. people who work less and for lower pay than they would like. A growing number of workers, This bifurcation reflects the fact that “working seeming to lack any kind of (and pay) for a living” has been the main occupation of security, are thus forced to work well below humankind throughout history. The thought of their ability. a cessation of work fills people with dread, for which the only antidote seems to be the promise It is natural that one would interpret the onset of better work. Few have been willing to take of precariousness as the first in a broader the cheerful view of Bertrand Russell’s trend toward workforce redundancy, especially provocative 1932 essay In Praise of Idleness. if one pays attention to alarmist predictions of Why is it so difficult for people to accept that the next category of “jobs at risk.” But this the end of necessary labor could mean barely conclusion is premature. The penetration of imaginable opportunities to live, in John robotics into the world of work has not yet been Maynard Keynes’s words, “wisely, agreeably, sufficient to explain the rise of the precariat. So and well”? far, “cost cutting” in the West has largely taken the form of offshoring to the East, where labor The fear of labor-saving technology dates back is cheaper, rather than replacing humans with to the start of the Industrial Revolution, but two machines. But “onshoring” work that was factors in our own time have heightened it. The previously offshored will offer cold comfort to first is that the new generation of machines workers if machines get most of the jobs. seems poised to replace not only human muscles but also human brains. Owing to Robo-rapture advances in machine learning and artificial According to the first view – let us call it “job intelligence, we are said to be entering an era of enrichment” – technology will eventually thinking robots; and those robots will soon be create more, better human jobs than it destroys, able to think even better than we do. The worry as has always been the case in the past. Simple, is that teaching machines to perform most of mundane tasks may increasingly be automated, the tasks previously carried out by humans will but human labor will then be freed up for more make most human labor redundant. In that “interesting” and “creative” cognitive work. scenario, what will humans do? 2

In late 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute History is on the optimists’ side. (MGI) published Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained, Mechanization has been the durable engine of which claimed that as much as 50% of working productivity and wage growth as well as hours in the global economy could theoretically reductions in working hours, albeit usually with be automated; the authors suggested, however, a considerable lag. Although the Roberts loom that not more than 30% actually would be. cost hundreds of thousands of handloom Further, they estimated that less than 5% of weavers their jobs in the nineteenth century, the occupations could be fully automated; but that broader wave of new industrial technologies in 60% of occupations, at least 30% of the enabled a much larger population to be required tasks could be. maintained at a higher standard of living. In line with the usual mainstream assessment, Robo-redundancy MGI believes that while there will be no net But, according to the second view – call it “job loss of jobs in the long run, the “transition may destruction” – this time is different. The include a period of higher unemployment and programming of machines to perform ever wage adjustments.” It all depends, the authors more complex tasks with ever-increasing say, on the rate at which displaced workers are speed, accuracy, precision, and reliability will re-employed: a low re-employment rate will result in mass unemployment. In Rise of the lead to a higher medium-term unemployment Robots, author and entrepreneur Martin Ford rate, and vice versa. addresses the techno-optimists head-on. “There MGI’s proposal for massive investment in is a widely held belief – based on historical education to lower the unemployment cost of evidence stretching back at least as far as the the transition is also conventional. The faster industrial revolution – that while technology the labor reabsorption, the higher the wage may certainly destroy jobs, businesses, and growth. Lower re-employment levels will even entire industries, it will also create entirely cause to fall, with a greater share of the new occupations … often in areas that we can’t gains from automation accruing to capital, not yet imagine.” The problem, Ford argues, is that labor. But the authors hasten to add: information technology has now reached the point where it can be considered a true utility, “Even if the particulars of historical experience much like electricity. turn out to differ from conditions today, one lesson seems pertinent: although economies It stands to reason that the successful new adjust to technological shocks, the transition industries that will emerge in the years ahead period is measured in decades, not years, and will have taken full advantage of this powerful the rising prosperity may not be shared by all.” new utility and the distributed machine intelligence that accompanies it. That means This assessment is typical, and it has led many they will rarely – if ever – be highly labor- to call on governments to invest heavily in so- intensive. The threat is that as creative called “upskilling” programs. In a commentary destruction unfolds, the “destruction” will fall for Project Syndicate, Zia Qureshi of the primarily on labor-intensive businesses in Brookings Institution argues that, “with smart, traditional areas like retail and food forward-looking policies, we can … ensure that preparation, whereas the “creation” will the future of work is a better job.” In this view, generate new industries that simply don’t automation is simply the continuation of the employ many people. move toward more, higher-quality jobs that has characterized capitalist growth since the On this view, the economy is heading for a Industrial Revolution. tipping point where job creation will begin to fall consistently short of what is required to 3 employ the workforce fully. We will soon reach labor displacement caused by new the stage where the machine-driven destruction technologies, optimists rarely admit that if of existing human jobs far outpaces the creation predictions about “thinking robots” turn out to of new human jobs, resulting in inexorably be anywhere near true, workers would need to rising mass “technological unemployment.” be trained in technical skills to an extent that is unprecedented in human history. The upskilling mirage Moreover, the time it takes to upgrade the skills Optimists’ response to such concerns is that the of the workforce will inevitably exceed the time workforce simply needs to be trained or it takes to automate the economy. This will be upskilled in order to “race with the machines.” true even if claims about an imminent deluge of Typical of this outlook is the following automation are greatly exaggerated. In the headline on a commentary published by the interval, there will be under- and World Economic Forum: “How new unemployment. In fact, this has already been technologies can create huge numbers of happening. Although automation is not yet meaningful jobs.” According to the author, bearing down on workers to the extent that has concerns about “the looming devastation that been predicted, it has nonetheless pushed more self-driving technology will have on the 3.5 of them into less-skilled jobs; and its mere million truck drivers in the US” are possibility may be exerting downward pressure “misdirected.” Augmented-reality technology, on wages. There are already signs of the new we are told, can create loads of new jobs by class structure envisioned by the pessimists: enabling people to work from home. All that “lovely jobs at the top, lousy jobs at the will be needed is of the kind offered by bottom.” “Upskill, an augmented reality company in the manufacturing and field services sectors,” A more fundamental question is what we mean which “uses wearable technologies to provide by upskilling, and what its consequences might step-by-step instructions to industrial workers.” be. Often, heavy emphasis is placed on the importance of better technological education at The author, himself the co-founder of an all levels of society, as if all people will need to augmented-reality company, goes on to argue succeed in the future is to be taught how to that, “With the pace of technological progress write and understand computer code. only accelerating and with increasing specialization becoming the norm in every As the technology writer James Bridle industry, reducing the time necessary to retrain has shown, this line of argument has a number workers is pivotal to maintaining the of limitations. While encouraging people to competitiveness of industrialized economies.” take up computer programming might be a There is no mention of the wages that will be good start, such training offers only a offered to these “upskilled” workers in their functional understanding of technological “meaningful” new jobs. We are simply told that systems. It does not equip people to ask higher- they will be relocated to “lower cost areas more level questions along the lines of, “Where did in need of job creation.” Only at the very end of these systems come from, who designed them the commentary does the author acknowledge and what for, and which of these intentions still that, in fact, “Technology is a force that has the lurk within them today?” Bridle also points out potential to eliminate entire industries through that arguments for technological education and robotics and automation, and for that we should upskilling are usually offered in “nakedly pro- be concerned.” market terms,” following a simple equation: “the information economy needs more The retraining argument should give us pause. In portraying upskilling as the solution to the 4 programmers, and young people need jobs in work. Yet if we want to meet the challenges of the future.” the future, it is not enough to know how to code, analyze data, and invent algorithms. We The missing dimension need to start thinking seriously and at a More to the point, the upskilling discourse systemic level about the operational logic of totally ignores the possibility that automation consumer capitalism and the possibility of de- could also allow people simply to work less. growth. The reason for this neglect is twofold: it is In this process, we must abandon the false commonly assumed that human wants are dichotomy between “jobs” and “idleness.” Full insatiable, and that we will thus work ad employment need not mean full-time infinitum to satisfy them; and it is simply taken employment, and leisure time need not be spent for granted that work is the primary source of idly. (Education can play an important role in meaning in human lives. ensuring that it is not.) Above all, wealth and Historically, neither of these claims holds true. income will need to be distributed in such a way The consumption race is a rather recent that machine-enabled productivity gains do not phenomenon, dating no earlier than the late accrue disproportionately to a small minority of nineteenth century. And the possibility that we owners, managers, and technicians. might one day liberate ourselves from the “curse of work” has fascinated thinkers from Unlimited access to On Point and The Big Aristotle to Russell. Many visions of Utopia Picture, a copy of our Year Ahead magazine, betray a longing for leisure and liberation from and unfettered access to the PS archive – are all toil. Even today, surveys show that people in included. You can give an annual subscription, most developed countries would prefer to work set it to deliver on a custom date, and even add less, even in the workaholic United States, and a personal message. Spread knowledge this might even accept less pay if it meant logging holiday season – the world will be better for it. fewer hours on the clock. Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at The deeply economistic nature of the current Warwick University. He is the author of a three-volume debate excludes the possibility of a life beyond biography of John Maynard Keynes.