Reasons Unbeknownst

Unemployment is listed as the root cause of the now waning rioting in France. News from financial gurus suggests we’re about to have a heck of a lot of unemployed people in America too. “The Center for Economic and Policy Research predicts worse, saying a bubble burst would mean the loss of 5 million to 6.3 million jobs. “ It looks like the predicted masses of unemployed that should have been made jobless by automation are simply finding work building and selling homes, in financing, speculation and supporting industries (Home Depot). Increasing home prices have masked the extent of the losses.

The question for America is what happens when automation finally leads to unemployment the likes of which are currently only known to France and Germany? Will bored teenagers riot? In the past we’ve been pretty good at creating new jobs surrounding the technology that killed the old jobs. Farmers were employed in the cities, calligraphers started building printing presses, etc. But we’re now at a point where the skills required for the new jobs require much higher skill levels than those emerging from previously disruptive changes. Technology is leading not only to the loss of jobs it’s changing the nature of industries that previously relied on middlemen.

The high school diplopma is becomming worthless while those with college degrees earn more. If our education system is designed to prepare our kids for blue collar jobs in factories should we expect disillusionment when they graduate only to find armies of tireless non-union robots? Should we prepare our youth for the inevitability of a lifetime of unemployment and dependence on the state? Is human nature compatible with life on the dole? Does status dictate that we’ll be ok with a lower standard of living as long as everybody else suffers the same fate?

My problem is that I never get bored. You could lock me in a room with an internet connection and a laptop and I could sit in the corner for years on end, reading and debating with the millions of diverse minds on the internet. It’s hard for me to understand the plight of the bored. But that quote “Idle hands do the devil’s work” makes me wonder if a nation of the bored would revolt, just to stir up some excitement.