While some dispute the dire predictions on grounds new positions will be created to offset the job losses, the fact that all these major studies report significant workforce disruptions should be taken seriously. If the employment impact falls at the 38 percent mean of these forecasts, Western democracies likely could resort to authoritarianism as happened in some countries during the Great Depression of the 1930s in order to keep their restive populations in check. If that happened, wealthy elites would require armed guards, security details, and gated communities to protect themselves, as is the case in poor countries today with high income inequality. The United States would look like Syria or Iraq, with armed bands of young men with few employment prospects other than war, violence, or theft.Wow. And you thought global warming was scary. It is, but so is this.
Wait, there's more:
With some workforce disruption virtually guaranteed by trends already underway, it is safe to predict American politics will be chaotic and turbulent during the coming decades. As innovation accelerates and public anxiety intensifies, right-wing and left-wing populists will jockey for voter support. Government control could gyrate between very conservative and very liberal leaders as each side blames a different set of scapegoats for economic outcomes voters don’t like. The calm and predictable politics of the post-World War II era likely will become a distant memory as the American system moves toward Trumpism on steroids (emphasis added).I've written before that the election of Donald Trump was a confluence of several trends in America, one of which was a subset of the electorate justifiably angry about a lack of economic opportunities for themselves and their children — particularly outside the growing, affluent urban areas. Conventional wisdom says the U.S. doesn't manufacture much of anything anymore, but the statistics say the opposite: manufacturing in the U.S. is at an all-time high, in terms of dollar output. However, manufacturing employment remains low because technology allows more goods to be manufactured without more workers.
Increased productivity, as defined by economists, was supposed to be a good thing. And for people with IT or engineering skills who set up and maintain these highly automated factories, it is a golden age. But not everybody has an IT or engineering background, and even if everyone did, the number of jobs in those fields is finite.
Brookings describes a startling future when Americans become so disenchanted with low-wage employment in service jobs that serious political consequences ensue. I believe we've already seen the start of it. New import tariffs and threats of a trade war with China are political reactions to the distress of these Americans. Such tactics aren't likely to achieve anything positive and could actually make things worse. But if dystopia is to be averted, we need action of some type… better ideas and the will to implement them. Otherwise, the Brookings piece has an attribute of inevitability.
