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The "quiet catastrophe" is particularly dismaying because it is so quiet, without social turmoil or even debate. It is this: After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14 percent. If the labor-force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs.
The work rate for adult men has plunged 13 percentage points in a half-century. This "work deficit" of "Great Depression-scale underutilization" of male potential workers is the subject of Nicholas Eberstadt's new monograph "Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis," which explores the economic and moral causes and consequences of this:
Is it an aberration, or a harbinger of things to come?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday October 09 2016, @08:44AM
In fact the whole issue is misrepresented.
If robots work instead of you and computer think and remember instead of you, a society MUST work less.
What do you do when you have less work to do? take turns. But alas, millions of idle men, or women for that matter, who are not desperate for jobs or dumbing themselves with drugs and tv, and instead start looking at society, at what their economists and polititcians do, at the ramification of the choices that have been taken from them, is the LAST thing people in charge want. They would rather let economy tank, civil war rage. They can profit from that.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 09 2016, @01:33PM
You're way too used to talking to people with a modicum of intelligence.
At least half (likely much more) aren't capable of understanding even the most basic problems of society, and that's without the drugs or television! Just look at my countries choices for leadership this year. And the cheerleaders of both sides defend their actions. That's not rational.
Bread and Circuses. Make sure they have at least something on the line and keep 'em just happy enough not to rise up, because when they truly have nothing to lose.....well, we know where that story goes.
Automation though, is going to make this go around a lot more interesting, and governments are slow to react to change. What will they do when most service, driving, janitorial and industrial jobs are automated? There will have to be a massive change to society to keep it in check once only mechanics, coders, and politicians have real jobs. (way oversimplified I know, but I'm rambling as it is, too much drugs and TV...)
Idiocracy is fast becoming a documentary.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:44PM
Idiocracy was a commentary on our society, not a prediction. We are already there, minus some of the exaggerations.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:06PM
Just wait till 30% of the robots are redundant - they you will see the real problems!
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:37AM
I'll join the Army...
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @07:06PM
What do you do when you have less work to do? take turns.
The (Socialist) Mondragon worker-owned cooperative has encountered this (in a micro sense, serving as an example for the macro model).
With the construction of new housing in a slump, orders to their appliance manufacturing division slowed down.
They moved some folks from the appliance division to other divisions and reduced everyone's hours a bit.
Everyone tightened his belt a bit and all the worker-owners have weathered the slump.
Compare this to the way a Capitalist operation would have handled that: laying off a bunch of folks.
Add to that the increased productivity of USAian workers for decades and decades while wages have essentially remained flat. [washingtonpost.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2016, @09:35PM
Not actually true.
Some industries had massive layoffs. Others did not. Do you know what the difference was?
No, it was not the magnitude of charitable urges of blood-sucking vampiric bosses.
It was how easily replaced the workers were. Construction? Bad news, guys, almost anyone can step in and push a wheelbarrow full of concrete up a ramp. Master machinists? Say there, friend, could we drop your hours for a while until the bad times are over?
In some mixed systems such as in Germany, layoffs were extremely rare. They just cut hours and waited out the storm.
Nothing unique about Mondragon here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 13 2016, @10:09AM
If robots work instead of you and computer think and remember instead of you, a society MUST work less.
And if instead robots work to increase the value of your own labor, then a society would continue to see high demand for labor.