Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Is there less work because of machines?
Looking at the wider context – like the last 50 years – there has definetly been a lot of change.
In particular basic work in factories that used to require a significant amount of manpower has drastically decreased.
Existing jobs require more qualification. There are fewer jobs that can be done without any training.
The fact that an increasing amount of work is done by machines does not take work away from society.
It only leads to new necessities and different forms of work that is needed.
If you examine the automation process of the last couple of years it can definitely be said that work has changed
and industrial labour will continue to decrease.
In the last decades the decrease in the agricultural and industrial sector has been absorbed by the service sector,
maintaining total jobs on a relatively equal level.
However we have not yet sufficiently taken into account that the service sector is also seeing an automation process.
I think the idea that machines are taking away our jobs is one of the greatest misunderstandings one can currently have.
There remain, however, a lot of tasks necessary for society that are not done
because they cannot be profitably organised within a capitalist logic.
Free time is created by using machines, and the consequent question is: 'Where do we invest this time that was made available?'
The primary function of machines is to facilitate our life.
People are released. But there is still much work to be done in society.
It can be said that work is taken away from us, but it is more appropriate to say that work is being done for us
to allow for other, more subtle levels of work. Working power is freed due to machines which can be reinvested in other areas.
Machines make the next cultural step possible, which is doing things that only humans can do.
Demand is still high for tasks that machines cannot do.
1. Who will do the dirty work? // What does this mean for the trade unions? // 3. Does a BIG mean redistribution? // 4. Other topic