US businesses chose machines over worker skills decades ago

Evidence

It is not surprising that nearly forty years later, a Brookings Institution report laments that millions of US workers are “shut out of decent middle-skill opportunities” in the face of “rapid digitalization.” The report exhorts companies to “invest urgently in IT upskilling strategies for incumbent workers, knowing that digital skills represent a key channel of productivity gains.” How different might our society be if US businesses had chosen to invest in people as well as in machines? — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 571

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Digital automation threatens up to 47 percent of US jobs — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 240; Italian skilled workers embraced automation while American workers opposed it — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1089; Industrialized labor destroys manual skill and familiarity with things — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2307 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Italian skilled workers embraced automation while American workers opposed it #qualifies (0.85) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1089
• Capitalist growth advances through labor-saving technology that destroys jobs #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 245
• AI adoption is reducing the need for entry-level workers. #exemplifies (0.80) — Joanna Stern, I Am Not a Robot- My Year Using AI to…, 858
• Industrial capitalism’s workplace practices reshaped twentieth-century society to fit mass production. #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1309
• AI reduces job quality by devaluing human labor. #exemplifies (0.80) — Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, The AI Con- How to Fight Big Tech’s…, 126
• Industrialized labor destroys manual skill and familiarity with things #complicates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2307
• Machinery’s skill hierarchy preselects which class ideology will arise #expands (0.72) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 571
• Modern wage labor strips the craftsmanship that once gave bakers self-esteem #exemplifies (0.72) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 237