> but the issue is that the conditions pertaining to work in an Amazon warehouse do not lend themselves to being the kind of work one can do for decades+
But why does this work need to be for decades? Why isn't the worker in amazon also educate themselves or upskill, so that they can move to a different career with higher paying prospects?
The days of working the same job for your entire life is gone - and that it's every person's own responsibility to keep improving their own skills and career prospects, continuously throughout their life.
Firstly, if every Amazon worker (or other low-skill job) educated themselves into a better job, there’d be no low-skill/low-wage workers. I think many of us would really dislike living in a world where these sorts of jobs support even a moderate lifestyle. For example, someone doing the dishes at a restaurant. Therefore, we do find these jobs valuable as a society and we want people to do them.
Secondly, are we really sure that if everyone suddenly educated themselves into a better job that there would be enough better jobs to go around? It seems unlikely. Particularly with increased automation.
My point is that the “get a better job” argument isn’t a strong solution to providing for everyone’s needs. We’re pretty clearly getting worse in this area as a society, with stagnating wages and fewer opportunities for entry-level work which can make ends meet.
At a point, if this trend continues, you get riots and revolution when people feel they don’t have another choice. We aren’t necessarily close to that, but if these trends continue, that’s more people making less money with higher prices. At some point that leads to desperation for enough people that violence happens. Just look at Russia or France in the past couple hundred years.
My meaning with that is that it’s not just someone’s own responsibility, but that there is some level of social responsibility for maintaining a baseline.
> we do find these jobs valuable as a society and we want people to do them.
If they were valuable, they would be valuable enough to pay a high price.
And i don't believe that it is possible to run out of high skilled jobs. It may be that in the further future, these higher skilled jobs paid just as much as low-skilled jobs of today, and the lowskilled job of today disappears due to automation. But that's a good future - it means that production and output must be very high for it to occur. And who's to say there won't be even higher skilled jobs? Or brand-new job types that's not envisioned yet? After all, human have unlimited desires which is the impetus for all economic progress.
> if this trend continues, you get riots and revolution
only if society don't invest in up-skilling. I'm a big fan of society helping those of lower skill to increase their skill. Education is one of the most efficient forms of investment a gov't can undertake.
But why does this work need to be for decades? Why isn't the worker in amazon also educate themselves or upskill, so that they can move to a different career with higher paying prospects?
The days of working the same job for your entire life is gone - and that it's every person's own responsibility to keep improving their own skills and career prospects, continuously throughout their life.