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From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Wage Rates: Unions, Minimum Wage Laws, and Employer Oligopoly
Message-ID: <73@spar.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Feb-85 01:56:07 EST
Article-I.D.: spar.73
Posted: Sat Feb  9 01:56:07 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 04:03:11 EST
References: <811@ratex.UUCP> <63@spar.UUCP> <1103@amdahl.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 55

> I have seen this "dark satanic mills" quote before, and rebutted it
> before.
> 
> The synopsis of the rebuttal is:
> 
> Human beings have adapted thru various technological/economic
> revolutions (you didn't even mention the Agricultural Revolution!).
> All that Weiner has pointed out is that people will shift
> into different jobs as certain jobs become obsolete or are best
> handled by machines.  This process has been going on since
> (at least!) the Agricultural Revolution.
> 

Let's look at it again:

                             Of course, just  as  a  skilled  car-
    penter,  the  skilled mechanic, the skilled dressmaker have in
    some degree survived the first industrial revolution,  so  the
    skilled scientist and the skilled adminstrator may survive the
    second.  However, given the second revolution as accomplished,
    the  average  human  being of mediocre attainments or less has
    nothing to sell that is worth anyone's money to buy.

The easiest jobs to automate are jobs that anyone can do.  The new
jobs that are created are jobs that require progressively more in the 
way of training and talent.  The process has only begun.

> (As it happens, the long-term future of the job market is in
> *technological* and *entertainment* areas, due to growth of technology
> and increased leisure time).

Some former steel and auto workers have become medical technicians, DEC 
service engineers ;-), and soap opera stars, but for the most part these
jobs go to younger people.  We have begun to obsolete whole occupations
in less than a generation.  And we do not as a society approve of people
being paid for leisure.

> As for a system based on "human values", isn't that exactly what we
> have -- a system based on what humans value?  Or did you have some
> philosophical goal in mind?
> -- 
> Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam

Well, if you can remember back to the beginning of your posting,
you were refuting a quotation, so it seems a little strange to
ask what I had in mind.  The author died in 1964.  His name was
Wiener, not Weiner.  Again:

    The answer, of course, is to have a  society  based  on  human
    values OTHER THAN buying and selling.


				Please wake before pouncing,

						Baba