Silicon Collar is off to very nice media reviews, Amazon reader reviews and many nice emails from readers. But in many ways it has also touched a nerve. Some are irritated with my optimism. I find they fall into three camps
a) “Things will be really bad” – the guru
These tend to be technology savvy academics, analysts and economists who are convinced acceleration in computing corves will lead to massive job losses. In this ZDNet column I summarized a century of examples across sectors where we still have tens of millions of postal, secretarial, grocery and other jobs decades after automation was supposed to have destroyed them. In the book I have a chapter called Circuit Breakers to Over Automation which describes how societies only gradually absorb automation. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Automation does cause erosion of jobs, but that takes time, and it also creates a new generation of jobs
b) “Things are already bad” – the guilty
These tend to be people who talk about workers “left behind”. No denying there are many of those. You would be blind to not see the homeless or those that just stumble from job to job. This group of pessimists, however, focuses mostly on poor and lower middle class and wants more social programs for them. They keep talking “middle class squeeze” – blaming corporations and the “one percenters”. For whatever reason, they only have a foggy notion of the solid core of middle class – plenty of accountants, attorneys, architects, engineers, healthcare professionals and many others. They also don’t want to believe data like
- if you leave out the top 5%, the rest reported $ 6 trillion in AGI or $ 8 trillion in income to the IRS
- for 3+ years, the BLS has reported at least 4 million unfilled jobs every single month
c) “Things are already bad” – the angry
This group tends to discount all data, especially government sourced as propaganda for President Obama and by extension, Hillary Clinton. Their narrative is things will only get better if we have a change in government. I don’t have a problem with that (I am politically independent), but I do point out progress has been non-partisan under both parties
- Since 1990, average value of new US home has nearly doubled
- Since 1990, we have never had a single year when median annual family income has been under $ 50K
- our workers have $ 25 trillion in retirement assets
I am not on a crusade to turn everyone optimistic, but I sure hope they give the book a chance to provide an alternate point of view.
Besides, Amazon could use the revenue
