Where Have The Jobs Gone? And Who’s To Blame? Labor Day Musings
By Steve_in_KC on September 6, 2010 at 10:00 AM in Current Affairs
Hmmm… where to start? I know going in that my opinions and observations will be sure to gore everyone’s ox at some point, so I’ll try to be sure I don’t miss anyone. Oh, and the opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of anyone else in the world.
Where have the jobs gone? And who’s to blame? I think there is plenty of blame to go around. We’ve all watched it happen, slowly unfolding before our eyes. Sometimes we’re the victims. Sometimes we’re the perps.
But we’ve all got to face some unpleasant realities. First and foremost: many of those jobs are lost forever, gone like the village blacksmiths and the milkmen, the stenographers and telephone operators. And soon, it looks like newspapers and land-line telephones will be gone, and all those jobs with them.
Who’s to blame? I guess it’s ox-goring time.
Blame technology for devising so many machines and gadgets that do the work of people, making everything in life way too easy, and in the process turning us into a bunch of lazy slobs who have lost our work ethic. Maybe God is punishing us with this Great Recession for our slothful ways.
Blame ourselves for becoming slothful. And for spoiling our kids. Maybe not us, but someone we know. Who looks a lot like us.
Blame the unions (and community organizers!) for driving up the price of labor, and demanding more and more benefits from employers — to the point it pushed corporations to seek cheaper labor outside the United States. Add up the cost of wages and benefits for union workers, and compare it to foreign wages, and it’s no surprise enterprising capitalists take the better deal. We’re not only lazy, we’re greedy and demanding, biting the hands that feed us.
And blame population booms and immigration… even equal rights movements. They all contributed to increasing the number of people competing for a limited number of jobs. We’re a better society for having leveled the playing field for both genders and all races, which allows fair competition for jobs, with legal protections from discrimination, but this has resulted in more and more people competing for a limited number of good jobs. We’ve divided the job pie into so many pieces, the slices are microscopic.
But most of all, blame the greedy capitalists, the bankers and investors, the corporate bosses, and the rich in general. Most of them put their profits above the general welfare of the common people. If they can make twice as much money by moving their businesses outside the United States, you can bet your last dollar that they will do just that. Screw the Great Society.
Sorry for using this cliche, but the “paradigm has shifted” in the world of employment. Many types of work seem to be gone forever due to our changing world, but it’s certainly not the first time, and we’ve always come back from radical changes before, so I assume we will again. We have no choice but to adapt. It’s a matter of survival, and our survival instincts will always be based on supply and demand. Survival of the fittest… or the shrewdest.
In the short time of 50 years, and mere blip on the radar of the gods but most of a lifetime for the rest of us, the entire world has changed. America had just been transformed from a wilderness to an industrial giant to a Super Power in the course of 150 years, three blips on the radar, at the time most of us were being born. The generation of our parents (or maybe their parents) was the culmination of the American work ethic, the high point. The bar they set for us was much lower than where it was set for them. The bar for the current generation of kids is on the floor.
The progression of the spirit that built this country, from the earliest explorers and settlers to the “Greatest Generation,” who saved the world from the Forces of Evil, has produced a “Great Society” of laziness and entitlements. It’s almost as if having lived through the Victorian Age, Prohibition, The Great Depression, two World Wars, and the advent of the Atomic Age, they just wanted life to be easier for their children and grandchildren. A noble wish from hard-working folks for their families and society. Too bad it back-fired.
Spare the rod and spoil the child… so the proverb goes. It’s such an archaic and cruel concept, isn’t it? But it’s more than just a saying, and more than a symbol of the brutality of our ancestors. It’s a metaphor that conveys a vivid mental picture in a very few wise words. The wisdom is not that you should beat your children with rods to make sure they don’t get spoilt. The wisdom is that raising your children to be civilized and principled adults sometimes takes stern measures. Certainly there are cultures around the world that still practice brutal disciplines on their children, but it doesn’t make the kids better citizens. Terrorists maybe.
On the other extreme, pampered children often grow up devoid of the work ethic, lacking in principles of responsibility, and with an unbridled sense of entitlement. They expect to get their way because they always have. They are not contributing to our community resources, they are draining them. It’s not their fault. It’s the way we raised them and their parents. Devolution.
The most common occupations of our forebears were based on providing food and shelter. The agrarian cultures of the world began some 5,000 years ago (that we know of), and their development marks the beginning of civilization (as we know it). Those who grew up on working farms, even today, usually have had jobs at home, or chores of some kind. Even some city kids have had necessary chores or responsibilities, although not usually as “work”-like as farm chores. City kids have soft hands… and artificial tans.
As our society became more civilized, we passed laws to prevent child exploitation for cheap labor, which had the immediate effect of liberating children from a kind of slavery. But they were still expected to contribute to the bread-winning on a part time basis. If they weren’t needed for household chores or the family occupation, they were expected to produce income for their own needs and often surrender their earnings to the family. They had a job to do, like every other responsible member of the family. Some had it harder than others; some had it real hard. Some still do. But far too many today are spoiled. Spoiled means rotten, ruined, or gone bad. Yep, that word describes far too many of today’s younger people.
It seems that every generation has contributed to the increasingly unquenchable thirst to make life easier on themselves, and more so for their children. As our culture has become more advanced over the generations, the nature of work has changed with it. But it’s always, always, always shaped and driven by supply and demand. Sometimes it’s driven by war or basic survival. It was the convergence of industrial technology and the acute need for civilian workers during World War II, that brought American women into the industrial workplace in large numbers for the first time. After the war, women were competing for factory and construction jobs that had previously been almost solely men’s jobs. In return, men were allowed to be nurses and receptionists. Fair is fair.
With the population growing via reproduction and immigration, the job pie kept getting cut into smaller and smaller pieces. And as factories became more robotized and automated, fewer workers were needed. The fever of consumerism helped fuel the fires of manufacturing, but with each new development of automation, more jobs were lost forever. Rosie the riveter was replaced by a robotic arm that looks like something out of a Star Wars movie.
I don’t know the scientific research in this area, but it sure seems to me that as we got lazier and more demanding as workers, the owners began looking for alternative labor sources: Mexico, Japan, and other countries with a less pampered workforce. As American workers organized to put the business owners over a barrel, other countries gladly accepted jobs from American companies who had gotten fed up with the demands of American workers, with their pansy-assed 8-hour workdays and 5-day workweeks.
The capitalistic merchant class, manufacturers, and investors, with the lawyers and bankers providing legal protection and financial security, began building factories and offices in developing countries. This slashed labor costs, not only in the factories themselves but in the supporting occupations like providers of raw goods, warehousing, shipping, and even office staff. Being in a different country also allowed them to sidestep American protectionism, like tariffs and embargoes. They made more money all around for their American owners and investors. By keeping and laundering their profits in other countries’ banks, they also avoid paying income taxes to the U.S. But somehow, all that money makes it way back into the bank accounts or mattresses of the American elite. Tax free. Real patriotic bunch.
A paradigm shift means, technically, that we’ve reached a point of no return. When it was proven that the earth is round, for example, all the maps had to be changed. So American businesses, having proven they can make more money by moving jobs out of the U.S., are not going to start bringing those jobs back home, just because it would benefit the country’s economy. They won’t do it unless we pass protectionist laws that force it. That won’t happen, because American business is now interlaced with businesses all over the world. Businesses in other countries now own American businesses, and vice versa. It’s like one big extended family. If you’ve ever argued with your spouse or children about which side of the family to spend a holiday with, you should understand how these internationally-owned businesses can’t go back to being American businesses that keep all their holdings on U.S. soil. How would that work? Would the foreign investors have visitation rights at least?
OK, so… “Where did the jobs go?” Where was your car made? How about your computer? Your TV? Your clothes? Like it or not, we buy foreign-made goods, and when we call the company’s customer service, we talk to a foreigner. I just checked my stuff, and I can now name three countries in Asia that I do business with, all with the customer service based in India, where apparently it is believed they speak flawless American English.
Supply and demand. That’s the simple rule of commerce that will never change. Right now, there is a surplus of the supply of American workers compared to the demand for their services. In the 90s, it was the other way around, with many companies finding it difficult to fill all their positions. Let’s hope we can get back to that in our lifetimes.
There are no easy answers, obviously. When jobs come back, I suspect they will be different jobs than the ones we lost. We can’t expect our government to become isolationist and protectionist because we now live in a world economy. But it wouldn’t hurt if we started passing a few tax laws that give businesses incentives to keep their jobs here at home. Perhaps even the disincentive of tax penalties for companies that move jobs out of America. Especially if you have to talk to a guy named Randy in India when you call customer service for your device that was made in China!
And it wouldn’t hurt unions and other labor organizers to accept cuts in wages and benefits on the condition that businesses continue to provide good jobs. And the same for elected officials — they should cut their pensions and benefits by 75%! We should all do our part, as a nationwide effort to rebuild our economy. Shared sacrifice was part of the all-out effort that our forebears put into building this great country and protecting it from the forces of evil. I’d like to see some of these “public servants” donate their salaries to charity and “just say no” to perks.
We need to find a way to get back to that kind of community effort. We need to regain our work ethic. And we need to make damn sure we support elected officials who demonstrate leadership and strength of character, in the tradition of the spirit that made America great. There must be one somewhere!
I asked and answered, “Who’s to blame?” I blamed quite a few. Now, I’m asking you.
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