Market Mad House

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche

My Thoughts

How the Technology Jobs Apocalypse will lead to Forced Abortion

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The growing technology jobs apocalypse will lead to forced abortion and sterilization in America.

To explain, a large proportion of our population could lose its economic value because of technology, the Brookings Institution warns. “By 2030, some 25 percent of U.S. employment will have experienced high exposure to automation, while another 36 percent of U.S. employment will experience medium exposure, and another 39 percent will experience low exposure,” a Brookings Institution press release states. 

Thus, one in four Americans could be unemployable; and a “burden on society,” in the society in the eyes of many of people in 11 years. To elaborate, the Brookings report Automation and Artificial Intelligence: How machines are affecting people and places lists a wide variety of jobs that technology is likely to kill.

Will Technology Make the Working Class Redundant?

Disturbingly, Brookings researchers predict many working-class jobs could disappear completely because of technology.

Here is a small sampling of most vulnerable to technological replacement compiled by Brookings researchers:

  • Packaging and Filling Machine Operators and Tenders–100%.
  • Mail Clerks and Mail Machine Operators–93.7%.
  • Industrial Truck and Track Operators–91.7%.
  • Food Preparation Workers–91.4%.
  • Dishwashers–85.6%
  • Automotive Body and Related Repairers–85.4%.
  • Agriculture Equipment Operators–84.1%.
  • Restaurant Cooks–84%.
  • Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operators–82.1%.
  • Heavy and Tractor Trail Truck Drivers–81.4%.
  • Waiters and Waitresses–76.9%.

Is the Working Class Doomed?

Frighteningly, many of these positions are working-class jobs that require little or no education. Yet most of the jobs; our economy is creating, require advanced education or specialized skills.

Additionally, it will be difficult to retrain most of the people who fill these jobs for new positions. In fact, 63% of workers retrained through the U.S. Labor Department’s Trade Adjustment Assistance fund could not find jobs with their new skills, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Selingo estimates.

Consequently, America could soon have a large and growing class of poorly-educated nonworking people. Retraining skeptics like presidential candidate; Andrew Yang (D-New York), will say that class of useless people is already here.

Notably, 24% of prime working-age adults in the US were out of the labor force in 2018, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors estimates. Yang believes many of the 8.486 million Americans receiving Social Security Disability payments are on the program because they can longer find work.

Significantly, the number of Americans on disability grew from 6.201 million in 2004 to 8.486 million in May 2019, the Social Security Administration estimates. Notably, Quartz estimates six million manufacturing jobs disappeared between 2000 and 2010. Yang thinks many of the unemployed manufacturing workers went on disability.

The High Cost of Technological Unemployment

Historically, technological unemployment has been a short-term problem because technology created enough new jobs to replace the lost positions. However, unemployment by technology could become a multigenerational problem in just a decade.

Unfortunately, the potential fixes to this problem are likely to be morally offensive to many people. Technological unemployment solutions are discussion include; banning robots or artificial intelligence, a basic income, a jobs guarantee (government make-work programs), and national service (the draft).

These solutions will be expensive, politically controversial, and unpopular. In addition, I think national service and a jobs guarantee could lead to significant restrictions on individual freedom. Under national service, the government will force young people to perform “volunteer community service.”

All the fixes for technological unemployment will be incredibly expensive. For instance, hedge fund king Ray Dalio estimates a US basic income could cost $3.8 trillion a year, CNBC reports. Plus, “solutions” like national service and a jobs guarantee will require a massive increase in the size and scope of government.

Obviously, all the solutions will lead to massive increases in taxes. For example, presidential candidate Andrew Yang (D-New York) believes America will need a 10% value-added tax (VAT) to finance his Freedom Dividend basic income scheme.

How Technological Unemployment could lead to Force Abortion and sterilization

Under these circumstances, the wealthy could perceive the working-class as threat to their income and ability to make money. Consequently, some rich people will look for ways to reduce the number of working-class people to keep taxes low.

Mandatory birth control, forced sterilization, and forced abortions for working-class women are obvious means of reducing the number of unemployable people. A likely means of forcing women to comply is to make sterilization, birth control, and abortion requirements for government benefits.

The government could make sterilization; or an IUD implant, a requirement for food stamps, disability, housing vouchers, childcare, unemployment, or Medicaid eligibility, for instance. Additionally, the government could throw women who became pregnant off such programs. Frighteningly, social services bureaucrats are already using a wide variety of digital tools to control the behavior of the poor, Virginia Eubanks notes.  

Mandatory sterilization, abortion, and birth control are the logical extensions of that trend in a nation dealing with large numbers of superfluous workers. High-fertility rates among people of color; and religious minorities like Mormons and Evangelicals, will make such Draconian measures more attractive to the elite.

Why some Rich People will become Proponents of Mandatory Sterilization, Birth Control and Abortion

Sterilization proponents will use reducing taxes and cutting government to sell their agenda to the wealthy. Another argument is sterilization will give poor women more freedom and choices.

Consequently, wealthy Libertarians and Republicans could go from an alliance with pro-lifers to actively trying to suppress the pro-life movement. To explain, some critics of the pro-life movement like Oakland University Professor Michael Greiner believe restricting access to abortion and birth control is a form of economic oppression.

Greiner thinks some Republicans are using “pro-life laws” to keep poor women and women of color “barefoot and pregnant” to limit their political power. Conversely, future elitists could try to strip abortion opponents of political representation and voting rights to limit their influence.

Thus the voter suppression tactics Republicans are aiming at African Americans could be redirected against Evangelicals, Mormons, or even Catholics. Tellingly, some pro-choice activists are already discussing the possibility of redrawing legislative districts to strip conservative rural Christians of their political power.

Therefore, those who are pro-life and those who value freedom need to study technological unemployment now. I think the technological jobs apocalypse could lead to class warfare on both the unborn and women’s rights.