{"id":28425,"date":"2015-07-07T15:39:27","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T13:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=28425"},"modified":"2015-07-07T15:41:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T13:41:02","slug":"28425","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/28425\/","title":{"rendered":"Work Transformed by Technology?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jean Pisani-Ferry writes:\u00a0 In 1983, the American economist and Nobel laureate Wassily Leontief made what was then a startling prediction. Machines, he said, are likely to replace human labor much in the same way that the tractor replaced the horse. Today, with some 200 million people worldwide out of work \u2013 30 million more than in 2008 \u2013 Leontief\u2019s words no longer seem as outlandish as they once did. Indeed, there can be little doubt that technology is in the process of completely transforming the global labor market.<\/p>\n

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To be sure, predictions like Leontief\u2019s leave many economists skeptical, and for good reason. Historically, increases in productivity have rarely destroyed jobs. Each time that machines yielded gains in efficiency (including when tractors took over from horses), old jobs disappeared, but new jobs were created. Furthermore, economists are number crunchers, and recent data show a slowdown \u2013 rather than an acceleration \u2013 in productivity gains. When it comes to the actual number of jobs available, there are reasons to question the doomsayers\u2019 dire predictions. Yet there are also reasons to think that the nature of work is changing.<\/p>\n

Rather than try to stop the unstoppable, we should think about how to put this new reality at the service of our values and welfare. In addition to rethinking institutions and practices predicated on traditional employment contracts \u2013 such as social security contributions \u2013 we will need to begin to invent new institutions that harness this technology-driven transformation for our collective benefit. The backbone of tomorrow\u2019s societies, after all, will be built not by robots or digital platforms, but by their citizens. Laborers’ Future<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jean Pisani-Ferry writes:\u00a0 In 1983, the American economist and Nobel laureate Wassily Leontief made what was then a startling prediction. Machines, he said, are likely to replace human labor much in the same way that the tractor replaced the horse. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,13,71,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entrepreneurs","category-finance","category-inequality","category-women"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t