That's the title of a piece by Kling. A quote from his fascinating essay about post-industrial work:
The recent trend in job polarization raises the possibility that gains in well-being that come from productivity improvements will accrue to an economic elite. Perhaps the middle-class affluence that emerged during the latter part of the industrial age is not going to be a feature of the information age. Instead, we could be headed into an era of highly unequal economic classes. People at the bottom will have access to food, healthcare, and electronic entertainment, but the rich will live in an exclusive world of exotic homes and extravagant personal services. The most popular bands in the world will play house concerts for the rich, while everyone else can afford music downloads but no live music. In the remainder of this essay, I want to extend further this exercise in imagination and consider three possible scenarios.
The people who used to be bank tellers are not the same people who design and build ATM machines. Clerical jobs are disappearing fast. Secretarial jobs have already disappeared. Sales and service jobs are entering the maw of the internet: people buy their insurance, cars, and books online. Semi-skilled jobs are disappearing. Soon, teaching jobs will shrink with digital education. Productivity (ie, fewer employees) abounds. Outsourcing of everything, including legal work, abounds. Heck, even Wall St. jobs are disappearing. (However, there will always be work for skilled labor: carpenters, painters, electricians, plumbers, gunsmiths, firemen, masons, etc)
Kling wonders what the immediate future might hold for people who want to work, but who, despite education, lack specific skills. As I have said often here, a gentleman's liberal arts education is a wonderful thing indeed and helps produce good dinner companions but it is not work-related. It was never meant to be.
As Vanderleun guotes:
The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a liberal arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?" -- Jane Haddam
