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Economist: The Future Of Jobs: The Onrushing Wave

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The Future Of Jobs: The Onrushing Wave

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-jobs-the-onrushing-wave-2014-1

Economist.

“Previous technological innovation has always delivered more long-run employment, not less. But things can change.

IN 1930, when the world was “suffering…from a bad attack of economic pessimism”, John Maynard Keynes wrote a broadly optimistic essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”. It imagined a middle way between revolution and stagnation that would leave the said grandchildren a great deal richer than their grandparents. But the path was not without dangers.

One of the worries Keynes admitted was a “new disease”: “technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.” His readers might not have heard of the problem, he suggested–but they were certain to hear a lot more about it in the years to come.

For the most part, they did not. Nowadays, the majority of economists confidently wave such worries away. By raising productivity, they argue, any automation which economises on the use of labour will increase incomes. That will generate demand for new products and services, which will in turn create new jobs for displaced workers. To think otherwise has meant being tarred a Luddite–the name taken by 19th-century textile workers who smashed the machines taking their jobs.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-jobs-the-onrushing-wave-2014-1#ixzz2qlbLkj6d

Stephen

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Posted on: January 23, 2014, 6:02 am Category: Uncategorized

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