Between the daily calling of jobs, the disaster of 11/08/2016, its aftermath and analysis, and (surprising last straw) the probably-most-awesome-and-least-appropriate episode of South Park, I feel like I need to commit to paper an idea which has floated around my head for a long time: Down with blue collar jobs. Seriously. Enough of those. Enough for the defense for blue collar jobs. Enough of the begging for factories. Enough of the condemnation of world trade.
Seriously. As far as economics and technological progress go, blue collar jobs must decline. They won't disappear, obviously. But they must, and should, become at best a very minor part of the labor force. There is no escape, only delay. And the delay will only prolong the pain. So let it go, people.
Blue collar jobs (low-skill works, such as factory workers and farm hands) simply cannot compete on an international and inter-species scale. The latter is more serious, of course. Humans simply are not competitors of machines, plain and simple. A machine needs a few days of rest per year along with a very simple diet of energy. A machine can be discarded after a few years of depreciation. A machine does not feel pain and won't ever have family issues to impact work performances. A human simply cannot compete. A human, male or female, needs at least 5 hours of sleep along with a complex and expensive diet. A human also has social and mental needs and their fulfillment (e.g. entertainment and family) runs high risk of spilling over. These are merely raw physical prowess. Machines, generally speaking, require less training to attain better precision; and whatever they repeat, they repeat exactly. Humans can't compete, period.
But even before the machines take over, blue collar workers in an advanced economy can barely compete with their fellow workers in developing countries. Look, we are not talking about artisans or skilled workers. We are talking about low skill works. If a job requires nothing more than capacity to follow orders, how is a worker in middle USA (i.e. "Rush Belt") better suited than a random person (or, for that matter, a child) from the poorest region of Asia or Africa? The latter person also happens to accept about 1/20 of the former's wage.
Of course, workers of advanced economies hold a distinctive advantages: they have close proximity to the highly-skilled workforce that give them the orders. Capacities to quickly and accurately transfer procedures knowledge and give commands hold strategic importance for a firm to compete in the marketplace. Thus, workers with access to that strategic importance are paid premium.
But, seriously, without their highly skilled coworkers, what differentiate these workers from any random person on the street? Probably only the authority on the birth certificates (and many a time, skin color). Yes, in other words, blue collar workers are mere leeches of highly-skilled workers. And it's high time they should accept it.
Finally, let's face it, what's so hot about such jobs? Sure, they are hard work. But any ox and its father can work hard. We are humans! We are supposed to actualize ourselves. We are supposed to leave legacies behind. We are supposed to be creative, be personal, be special. How, may I ask, can a blue collar job be anything of these? It's almost always a dead-end of a career (one needs to switch to management for advancement; or engineering; or creative; or anything that requires an edge). Why do we keep begging for such work?
A highly skilled human is a wonder of the world. They can achieve accuracy that robots can only dream of. And while operating under impossible tolerance, they maintain excellent flexibility and creativity. They can make art that moves the soul. They can assemble machines that move the earth.
A professional humans, on the other hand, form the foundation of modern economies. They ensure that necessary things happen and disasters at bay. They build models of how the world works, plan for the future, and execute wonders. They do all this while keeping an eye out for black swans and unexpected issues.
We have jobs to make humans humans. Jobs that demand creativity. Jobs that demand self-driving and disciplines. Jobs that make a difference. Why, may I ask, do we keep begging for the demeaning, the dead-end, the robotic jobs?
