Anticipating a Luddite Revival by Stuart W. Elliott
Advances in information technology and robotics are already transforming the workplace, and even greater changes lie ahead. Here’s a look at what the next two decades might bring.
Even as computer-based consumer products have transformed our leisure and social lives over the past decade, information technology (IT) and robotics suggest a transformation of work that might be even more far-reaching. Some observers, including many workers, see this vision as inherently threatening.
Economists, however, have repeatedly argued that technological advance is central to economic growth and that workers displaced by technology in one sector will be absorbed in another. Of course, this process of adjustment takes time, and the economic arguments about long-term adjustment can seem particularly hollow during prolonged recessions. During these periods of lower economic activity, such as the slowdown the United States has recently been experiencing, displaced workers might find it difficult to move into new positions. Still, economics has provided a compelling model of the adjustments of the labor market to technological change, and the historical record has repeatedly demonstrated that the fears about substantial portions of the workforce being permanently displaced from work are unjustified.----- "
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