Fast food has traditionally been employment for kids. The fact that breadwinners now have no other options is indicative of a much more serious problem than the fact that fast food doesn't pay much. Jobs that any unskilled person can perform do not and should not pay much at all. What's far more important here is to figure out why breadwinners are stuck working as unskilled labor in the first place. Some seriously fucked up underlying economic elements are in play there.
well the main problem is that the people at the top, CEO's and so on are paid too much. Their wages are so high that companies lose a lot of proffit by paying for people who in reality don't add all that much in actual value. As such, the company in order to cut costs fires people that the company actually needs in order to keep paying the freeloaders at the top.
What's far more important here is to figure out why breadwinners are stuck working as unskilled labor in the first place.
We already know that reason. The reason is that many people do not have the education or the capacity to do anything but unskilled labor. At the beginning of the last century, about 90% of the jobs available were for unskilled labor. You don't need much skill to turn screws in factories or plow a field or to run a cash register. Without the technology and automation we have now, we had to use warm bodies to fill the gaps.
Now we do not need them as much. We can replace more and more jobs formerly performed by humans with robots, with software, with automated machinery. Our technology outstrips the ability of the population to change and become brain-workers...if that unskilled labor has the ability to become that. And this replacement is going to exponentially increase and enter into more and more fields of industry. The new robot picker, for instance, is going to be devastating to both family farms and the migrant worker; the agribusinesses that put them in place will eventually overwhelm them.
But no one wants to talk about that element. No one wants to talk about how Jeb, your lawn guy, is becoming obsolete. No one wants to talk about how you just don't need 50 people on the floor of that factory, but only 2 - and they're only there to repair and maintain the robots. No one wants to talk about how you can just replace retail salespeople with automated kiosks and some software. Or fast food cooks and cashiers.
That talk is eventually going to happen, though. And it will be harsh; no one is going to like saying, "Sorry, Jeb, but we just don't need people like you anymore. Your muscles are irrelevant. Go join the army, pick up a gun, and charge at the enemy or something. But hurry - soon that job will go away too, to be replaced by a drone soldier." No likes to be told that they're surplus, that they're obsolete.
The brains have already figured this out. They know that the jobs of the future require brains, not brawn. The muscles will figure it out eventually, but it won't matter - they'll have wasted away. And humanity thus progresses to a more technological civilization...
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-07-22 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-22 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 06:02 am (UTC)We already know that reason. The reason is that many people do not have the education or the capacity to do anything but unskilled labor. At the beginning of the last century, about 90% of the jobs available were for unskilled labor. You don't need much skill to turn screws in factories or plow a field or to run a cash register. Without the technology and automation we have now, we had to use warm bodies to fill the gaps.
Now we do not need them as much. We can replace more and more jobs formerly performed by humans with robots, with software, with automated machinery. Our technology outstrips the ability of the population to change and become brain-workers...if that unskilled labor has the ability to become that. And this replacement is going to exponentially increase and enter into more and more fields of industry. The new robot picker, for instance, is going to be devastating to both family farms and the migrant worker; the agribusinesses that put them in place will eventually overwhelm them.
But no one wants to talk about that element. No one wants to talk about how Jeb, your lawn guy, is becoming obsolete. No one wants to talk about how you just don't need 50 people on the floor of that factory, but only 2 - and they're only there to repair and maintain the robots. No one wants to talk about how you can just replace retail salespeople with automated kiosks and some software. Or fast food cooks and cashiers.
That talk is eventually going to happen, though. And it will be harsh; no one is going to like saying, "Sorry, Jeb, but we just don't need people like you anymore. Your muscles are irrelevant. Go join the army, pick up a gun, and charge at the enemy or something. But hurry - soon that job will go away too, to be replaced by a drone soldier." No likes to be told that they're surplus, that they're obsolete.
The brains have already figured this out. They know that the jobs of the future require brains, not brawn. The muscles will figure it out eventually, but it won't matter - they'll have wasted away. And humanity thus progresses to a more technological civilization...
no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 12:28 am (UTC)