ip: THE DE-SKILLING OF AMERICA

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

THE DE-SKILLING OF AMERICA
"One thing this fascination with computer technology and saving microseconds
will accomplish is to further dampen earnings and salaries.  The Luddites
weren't quite right.  Technology doesn't necessarily displace workers.
First, it lowers workers' ability to demand higher earnings.  Computer
scanners, for instance, de-skilled grocery cashiers, so their earnings
haven't kept pace.  Indeed, one of the ironies today is how the Vice
President can keep talking about fostering computers, on the one hand, and
then explaining how American families have seen their real incomes erode
over the past 10 years, as if he were a cybernetic Lois Lane, `galactically
stupid' and thus totally unable to draw the connection." (Telecommunications
Policy Review 27 Aug 95 p3)