Robots Will Save The American Worker

Image by tkksummers via Flickr

It has become basically mandatory for American business writers to write off “has-been” Japan. This is a bizarre spectacle: we’ve seen economic obituary after economic obituary for a country besot by a “crushing” unemployment rate of 5.2% (!), the burden of boasting 88 Fortune 500 companies, one of the world’s highest living standards, and one of the its most sophisticated infrastructures. (That’s quite a comfortable hospice!) Yet it’s China, we’re told, that is going to Rule The World. While the sun is allegedly setting on the Land of the Rising Sun, China, with its per-capita income of less than $6,000, demographic crisis of epic proportions, and lack of innovation and development, will soon reign supreme. (Spare me a moment to relay a telling anecdote: when I was working for a business magazine in Shanghai, we wanted to do a feature on the top R&D developments made by Chinese companies in 2009. We shelved the idea when we realized that all the major “developments” were actually pirated versions of foreign products.)

Many have noted that Japan suffers from a dearth of young workers. (Daniel Gross of Newsweek has claimed that this is the reason for its alleged “decline”.) Thus, the country has increasingly embraced the role of robots in everyday life - machines are increasingly performing service work.

This development is an unalloyed good – and one that the United States should be embracing. For only robots can save the increasingly oppressed American working class.

The growth of the “service” economy is one of the reasons that working Americans are increasingly beggared. According to a truly disturbing report prepared by the federal government, the average hourly wage for those engaged in the “leisure and hospitality” industry is $10.93 an hour. Factor in crushing (and blatantly regressive) payroll taxes and a lack of benefits, and you find that service work is recipe for a life of impoverishment. (And in “progressive” states like California, the poor are further punished with astronomical sales taxes.) Working in the service industry leads to poverty in the spiritual and intellectual sense, as well: nothing is quite as stultifying as eight hours spent pouring coffee or working a cash register. Tragically, more Americans are working in the service economy than ever.

The time has come for American companies to replace underpaid and discontented service workers with robots. Already Safeway has begun the process: automated checkout machines are increasingly replacing bored humans as cashiers at the venerable supermarket chain. Better a mechanical robot than a human robot, I say! While replacing humans with robots to perform robotic tasks may initially cause a small spike in unemployment, ultimately, it will redound to the benefit of all: new industries in charge of building and  maintaining the robots will spring up. (And these will clearly offer higher wages, as many of them will be skilled positions.) Moreover, all of the wasted human talent that goes into asking “do you want fries with that?” or “paper or plastic?” will be channeled in ways that will be more beneficial to individuals – as well as society at large.

For years, the rallying cry of many populists has been “Stop the Immigrants From Taking Our Jobs!” Now it should be, “Let The Robots Take Our Jobs!”