阅读理解
The belief that new technologies are causing the death of
work is the idea that never goes away. Despite evidence to the contrary, we
still view technological change today as being more rapid and dramatic in its
consequences for work than ever before. But this is nothing new. People have
always viewed the technological changes that take place during their lives as
the most dramatic and dangerous that ever happened in history.
In the 1930s, the British economist(经济学家) John Maynard Keynes predicted the
widespread use of electricity would produce a world where people spend most of
their time doing nothing. In the United States during the 1960s, the government
repeatedly investigates fears that automatic machines would permanently reduce
the amount of work available. In 1988, one Australian historian claimed that at
least a quarter of the workforce would be without jobs within 10 years because
of computers.
Of course, none of these disasters came to pass in the
United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, or anywhere else.
Yet today, we are seeing the return of these predictions,
with some experts claiming the world of work is once more undergoing radical(激进的)and
unprecedented(前所未有的) change. They argue that robots and
other workplace technologies are causing a reduction in the total amount of
work available, or are bringing a more rapid pace of substitution of machines
for humans than has been seen previously.
But there is a little evidence to support such beliefs.
Statistics show that the percentage of people in work, the number of hours they
work, and how frequently they change jobs have remained remarkably constant
over the past 20 years.
This stability should not come as a surprise. There are good
reasons why we should not expect new technologies to cause the death of work.
New technologies always cause job losses, but that is only part of the story.
What also needs to be understood is how they increase the amount of work
available.
One way this happens is through the increases in incomes
that accompany the use of new technologies. With the introduction of these
technologies, goods and services can be produced faster, which results in
higher real incomes for workers. Higher incomes then increase demand for other
products and consequently more workers are needed to make them. Additionally,
while new technologies are likely to substitute for some types of workers, they
will also increase demand for other types of workers, especially those with
higher level skills and expertise.
So, the end of work is no closer today than at any time in
the past. But there is still a need to keep disproving the prediction, to
reduce people's fears.
