World Food Technology kill the middle class technology first and then globalization are the most cruel torturers of American middle-class . Such is the verdict of an economics professor David Author (MIT) in report should also be of interest to Europeans. Today U.S. labor market is essentially split between odd jobs, poorly paid (security guards, cashiers, manutentionaires, etc.) and highly skilled and paid jobs (researchers, managers, lawyers, etc.): where " a polarization of employment opportunities "and thus an erosion of the middle classes.
A chart from the report The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market (p.15) by David Author reveals a sharp decline in opportunities and incomes in the "Central Valley" white-collar and blue collar. In many European countries, many studies also reported an increased suffering of the middle class, victims of a powerful brake in their salary increases, a continued increase in the cost of living (particularly because of mandatory spending such as electricity, water, gas, food, transportation, taxes & fees that block sometimes more than half of their income) and especially the almost endemic insecurity of employment for white collar and blue collar. According Jean-Marc Vittori , " middle classes have to be afraid. Because in our society, there is nothing "average". More products means more jobs means. There are only a means of large and small ways. Anything that is not growing is doomed to lose weight. There has more stability. There are no further embellished ensured, automatic improvement over escalator leading to the whole society up. The industrial revolution of the twenty-first century, that of information technology, fosters skilled labor: those who know how to use a computer and handle the information flow. Suddenly, the platoon office stretches. Society resembled a pyramid, where all the intermediate steps were the middle classes. The information revolution crushed the middle! Some are propelled upwards. The other down. At the pyramid replaces an hourglass. " both sides of the Atlantic, economists casually refer to a Keynesian growth that creates jobs, reduced the tax burden .. . or increase it for the richest. In short, nothing really innovative. Author for this erosion of the middle class is less the result of a Great Recession began in 2008 as process automation or outsourcing (engaged in the 70s) routine tasks that were once the preserve of white-collar and blue collar workers. Unfortunately, many of these routine tasks have been sequenced, digitized and modeled as to be executed by a computer or a robot or by an employee of a developing country. Clearly, the usual middle-class skills have become obsolete due to the combined effects of automation and offshoring ... who owes everything to the advancement of ICT and logistics.
Previously, it was the attendants who disappeared from gas stations now completely automated, and development labs photo wavered towards the rise of photography and the "camera phone" digital. Today, robots for assembly lines are produced by other robots in factories with little or no informed; reason: no need for human workers. Automation and / or relocation of call centers and hotlines eliminated armies of Switchboard. An executive assistant equipped with a laptop, a "Headset, a wireless connection and a suite give cold sweats to their counterparts 80 or 90 years. Tomorrow, the cashiers will be short-circuited by the ticket machines and electronic banking mobile (mobile payment or m- payment ) and become a vanity or a luxury for some outlets. One can also bet that well-designed software will provide remote monitoring and baggage searches.
Thus, as technology (IT, ICT, robotics) more efficient, increasing the fringes of white-collar and blue collar workers are impoverished and marginalized. Correspondingly, the process of Schumpeterian creative destruction (job) took a turn far less romantic than that described by economic theory: low-paid technicians maintain technologies developed by engineers paid dearly. Between these two classes socio, there is a vacuum near absolute.
screwdrivers Keynesian fiscal and rods do not suffice to stem the erosion of the middle classes by technology, factor too often ignored or evaded by politicians. Not everyone can be a programmer / developer, researcher in biotechnology, attorney, designer, doctor, e-marketer, insurance, financial advisor or robotics engineer, a thorough review of education and training required. This review should facilitate the emergence of blans collar and blue-collar best suited to an era where information sci-tech and demands creativity immerse all trades.
In the XXIst century even a poet is required to acquire an office suite, web browser, several social media concepts and some e-marketing to distribute his works more or less paid or free ...
Indeed, in democracies (post-) industrialized, the middle classes have long constituted the largest share of the workforce and have always been the main target of economic policies. Socioeconomic status and their overall outlook condition much "atmosphere" and the destiny of a nation. If nothing is done in North America and Europe to address erosion, the following equation will quickly form: less = more middle-class poor = more frustration and insecurity = more populism.
And if maintaining the middle class was part of a political as an economic necessity?
