Re:Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you
by 323454 on Monday October 09, 2017 @11:53AM
(#15434905)
Growing wealth inequality in the United States in the last twenty years was caused mostly by globalisation, the offshoring of jobs that left huge numbers of people out of work and broke while making the owners and investors multiple times wealthier. Automation has played its role in generating inequality at times in history, but the wave we are currently experiencing is not predominantly due to automation: it is instead due to cheap and plentiful foreign labor.
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Re:Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you
by eropple on Monday October 09, 2017 @01:00PM
(#15435513)
> Growing wealth inequality in the United States in the last twenty years was caused mostly by globalisation
Which is caused by two major factors: easier shipping, easier communication--both of which the tech sector encourages, facilitates, and pushes forward. And yes, automation is a nontrivial part of wealth inequality's growth, especially over the last ten years rather than twenty--you don't move a secretary's job elsewhere, you destroy it. Capital requires fewer hands than ever before and enables further centralization of that capital--and this is direct fallout of automation making workers superfluous.