If they don't, there's another 1.2 million jobs lost to technology in a country that has no answer to the growing imbalance between working-age population and gainful employment opportunities.
Let me re-cast your comment, circa 1900 (or 1800):
"There's another one million agricultural jobs lost to technology in a country that has no answer to the growing imbalance between the working-age population and gainful employment opportunities. 'Gainful' employment doesn't mean that you yoke yourself to someone else's factory somewhere; it means you own your own plot of land and work it."
I'm tempted to delete this comment because of the quick downvotes, but I'm not going to.
The reason you'll get downvoted is because your comment fails to account for productivity and other gains from trade or specialization; taken to the logical extreme, ensuring that no jobs are "lost to technology" means that we all live as hunter-gatherers, since any level of further technological development will put someone "out-of-work," even if that work is of no value.
This is going to sound harsh, but if you don't want to be downvoted, learning some economics first (and I'm talking about micro-econ—the stuff that works).
I understand the economics. I'm not against progress. I just commented that the real suffering it can cause people is something to be aware of.
I'm watching my parents, aunts and uncles struggling to even get interviews after months of unemployment following decades of gainful employment at companies that downsized during the recession. These are mostly white collar workers that never had trouble finding a job with a few days or weeks of searching all their lives; suddenly they don't even hear back after applying to dozens of companies.
It's the productivity gains technology continues to create that allowed hundreds of thousands of businesses to lay off workers during this latest recession while maintaining and growing their profits. Society progresses, yet a significant portion of it suffers during these changes nonetheless.
Your comment admonishing me for being somewhat troubled by this shows a lack of empathy.
Let me re-cast your comment, circa 1900 (or 1800):
"There's another one million agricultural jobs lost to technology in a country that has no answer to the growing imbalance between the working-age population and gainful employment opportunities. 'Gainful' employment doesn't mean that you yoke yourself to someone else's factory somewhere; it means you own your own plot of land and work it."
I'm tempted to delete this comment because of the quick downvotes, but I'm not going to.
The reason you'll get downvoted is because your comment fails to account for productivity and other gains from trade or specialization; taken to the logical extreme, ensuring that no jobs are "lost to technology" means that we all live as hunter-gatherers, since any level of further technological development will put someone "out-of-work," even if that work is of no value.
This is going to sound harsh, but if you don't want to be downvoted, learning some economics first (and I'm talking about micro-econ—the stuff that works).