Good Business

The problem arises, however, of what one is to do with those workers who are replaced by the robots.
It is not that there will be an overall diminution of jobs.  If the past is to be a guide, technological advances create more jobs than they destroy.  Thus, the automobile industry employs far more people than the buggy industry ever did.  Nevertheless, there is a change in the kind of jobs that will be available.  The repetitive jobs of the assembly line will tend to disappear.  The dull jobs of paper-shuffling and button-pressing will disappear.  In their place will be such jobs as computer-programming and robot maintenance.
On the whole, the jobs that will come into existence will be far more creative and will take far more education and training than will those that have disappeared.
It will therefore be part of the responsibility of the corporation of the future to see to the re-education of the workforce.  This could be done out of pure feelings of humanity and philanthropy, but it is more practical to suppose that it would be done out of a very natural desire to preserve the stability of society.  It might save money, in the short run, simply to cast out the displaced, but it would not be good business to have hordes of hungry and angry people ready to change, by force, the economic system that reduced them to misery.
—    Isaac Asimov
From his book:  “The Roving Mind“
[Asimov is referring to the responsibility of the corporation replacing the worker with automation.  In today’s political climate, it is the unemployed who must retrain themselves (at their own expense).  It is nice when the government can assist, but there is no “legal” responsibility.  And, of course, the corporation has no responsibility to their workers.  It will be interesting to see if this remains a tenable relationship between worker, government and corporation.  I believe it will not be tenable and we will end up with a voter imposed (via government) “New Deal” for workers which will shift some of the costs of retraining / re-education back onto the businesses / corporations of our economy.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022	So THAT’s Why…
2021	I Welcome The Questions
	6:00 AM
2020	Increasing Importance
	And Now Joe
2019	But Yours
2018	And Smile More Often
2017	He’s Keeping The Light On For Us
2016	The Results Of Trying Too Hard
2015	Make Me Look
2014	Fresh Drink
2013	Good Business
2012	Unsure Spirit
2011	A Lost Valuable

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