There are a lot of parallels. The Industrial Revolution rendered obsolete a great deal of the agrarian-based economy that preceded it, and many farmers were forced out of work "forever" -- at least as farmers. They had to take up entirely new lines of work, and the transition was messy.
In today's context, replace the transition from farming to industry with the transition from industry to knowledge-work and services. Robots and child labor will put a lot of people out of work, indefinitely, depending on the line of work they're in. So they'll need to find new lines of work. But it'll be a long time before robots have rendered all human work obsolete, despite what Singularity proponents would have us believe.
There isn't too much fundamentally different between what happened back then and what's happening now; only the set dressing has changed. We're not yet in the era of fundamental shifts in the way labor works. We have not reached the end of history.
What's changed between then and now? Predominantly, freer trade and more fluid and fungible labor markets. These have had at least as big an effect on labor as technology has (though the two forces have often worked in tandem).
The book is generally pessimistic in its outlook. Some critics argue that even this book, despite the breadth of its historical analysis, doesn't rely on enough data to make predictions. In essence, the book discusses how the postwar decades were a local aberration in a global data set. But one could argue that even the book isn't global enough in its analysis. (Though I'd argue that a more sweeping, global view of history would tend to bear out the book's thesis more than confound it.)
> But it'll be a long time before robots have rendered all human work obsolete, despite what Singularity proponents would have us believe.
I'm jumping on a detail here, but even if that time is near, it doesn't really matter, because the most likely scenario is intelligence explosion: the day the machines render all human work obsolete is the day they are at least as smart as us. Which means they can design AIs on their own. Smarter AIs. And those…
Well this eventually means a super-intelligence that could take over the world —and will do so, if it's initial programming includes any unbounded goal, implicit or explicit. (To give you an idea of the potential gap: the other great apes don't rule the world. We do. 'Cause we're smarter, and though of things like picking up some hot blazing stick and taming it for food and shelter —or bridges and nukes, which can't even be explained in terms a chimp can understand. To the AI, we won't even look like chimps. More like mice, or bugs.)
So at this point, we're not thinking about the economic consequences of human obsolescence. We're thinking of not being used for spare parts.
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In the meantime, all humans won't be obsolete, so your main point looks okay. I'll just add that however long it takes to reach intelligence explosion, it will probably be a period of perpetual transition: more and more automation, less and less human labour. Technological unemployment has already started, it will only amplify. Whether that's a tragedy or good news depends on how we handle it as a society. (Like, we could have ever more massive unemployment and inequality, or we could have basic income and 4-3-2-1 days work-week —or whatever I haven't thought of and actually works.)
"(Like, we could have ever more massive unemployment and inequality, or we could have basic income and 4-3-2-1 days work-week —or whatever I haven't thought of and actually works.)"
This is what kills me about the fear of automation and progressive taxation. There is a real shot here at capitalizing on the opportunity--less work and more, better living for all by reducing working hours. It's not talked about AT ALL in the media, which leads me to believe voters aren't even thinking about it. Worse, I suspect most people haven't considered it as a possible solution.
I have just finished "Understanding Power" by Noam Chomsky. I believe his interpretation would be that the media don't talk about it because those in power don't want them to: it would lead to less profit.
See, reducing working hours would drive down unemployment, which means more bargaining power for the working class, leading to higher wages, and ultimately, inflation. Not hyper inflation, but enough to be an effective tax on wealth. With relatively few exceptions, those people want to keep they money, so they don't want inflation, nor anything that might lead to it.
Therefore, the media don't speak of it. Those who do simply lose advertising revenue, possibly driving them out of business. Which is why I'm surprised to see this article on the New-York Times. Is this book welcome in the current intelligentsia? Is it simply an article that slipped through the cracks? Or are media becoming less eager to serve power?
You got me thinking about inflation as a tax on the wealthy but after thinking about it some, I quickly realized that most wealth is stored in real estate or stocks/bonds- not cash. Future business earnings would also scale up with inflation.
The only people losing out are those who store their wealth as cash, and really, who does that?
Oops, good point. Still, even without inflation, more bargaining power means less money for the other party: more money would go to the workers, and less would go to the capitalists.
This is even more direct than this inflation stuff, I should have mentioned it right away.
As for how people store their money… I believe many rather important financial "products" are sensitive to inflation. I'm not a specialist, but here is an example: insurance. You give an insurance company something (money, bonds, debts…), and ask for money in return. Not now, but later. If that sum is not indexed to inflation somehow, it will be sensitive to it. One also need some cash to exchange all those bonds and stocks and what have you. By reducing the money supply, inflation may reduce the fluidity of the market, which may have effect on the market value of stocks.
In today's context, replace the transition from farming to industry with the transition from industry to knowledge-work and services. Robots and child labor will put a lot of people out of work, indefinitely, depending on the line of work they're in. So they'll need to find new lines of work. But it'll be a long time before robots have rendered all human work obsolete, despite what Singularity proponents would have us believe.
There isn't too much fundamentally different between what happened back then and what's happening now; only the set dressing has changed. We're not yet in the era of fundamental shifts in the way labor works. We have not reached the end of history.
What's changed between then and now? Predominantly, freer trade and more fluid and fungible labor markets. These have had at least as big an effect on labor as technology has (though the two forces have often worked in tandem).
The book is generally pessimistic in its outlook. Some critics argue that even this book, despite the breadth of its historical analysis, doesn't rely on enough data to make predictions. In essence, the book discusses how the postwar decades were a local aberration in a global data set. But one could argue that even the book isn't global enough in its analysis. (Though I'd argue that a more sweeping, global view of history would tend to bear out the book's thesis more than confound it.)