Ned Ludd, Where Are You?

When I was a kid, Dad would take us for rides in the Rambler and, of course, occasionally stop for gas.  He’d pull up to the pump, turn the engine off, and (usually) grind out his cigarette in the pull-out ashtray, rolling down the driver’s side window about halfway. A young man, a teenager usually, would hurry over to the car; sometimes there would be two.  He’d wear coveralls at some of the stations, or at least a twill shirt with his name embroidered over the pocket.  It wasn’t always clean.  While the tank was filling, he’d squeegee the windshield and the back window.  My perfectionist father would point out spots he’d missed and he would cheerfully (okay, at least not grudgingly) go over them again.  Dad would pay, the attendant would make change, and we’d be off.

Oregon is, in this respect at least, a time machine.  It’s a shock to purchase gas across the Columbia, because Oregon refuses to let me pump my own.  I still relive the day of the attendant.

In 1951, Oregon opted to stop the clock, passing a bill prohibiting customers from pumping their own gas.  Ostensibly, it was on the ground of safety; gasoline is, of course, explosively volatile.  But, whether intentionally or not, it preserved an entire genre of entry-level jobs, available to even callow high-school students:  the gas station attendant.

I thought about this recently as I watched a television news report about a new experiment.  Amazon.com has opened, of all things, a grocery store in Seattle. At the moment, it serves only Amazon employees (Amazonians?), but if it succeeds, the internet behemoth plans to open 2,000 across the country. What makes it remarkable is that customers can browse the shelves, choose whatever foodstuffs they wish, and walk out the door.  There are no checkstands.  And, of course, there are no checkers.

If these 2,000 stores become a reality, they could do to traditional grocery stores what the infant Amazon did to brick-and-mortar book stores, in the process eliminating another full genre of entry-level jobs, from stockers to checkers, even to managers.  And they could easily become a model for other retailers like pet supply or hardware stores.  Already, Wal-Mart is exploring the same concept.

And then there’s Uber.  The car-sharing, app-driven service has already severely disrupted the traditional taxi industry.  But they, too, are exploring automation, developing self-driving cars that are already on the road in Pittsburgh and, soon, San Francisco. Although taxi-driving isn’t exactly an entry-level job, it has provided opportunities through the years for those with lower education levels, those without specialized skills, and recent immigrants.  A recent count showed that, across the country, almost 234,000 people earn a living driving cabs. Bus driver and even long-haul truckers could face the same future.

Donald Trump won election largely on a promise to restore American jobs, the kinds of jobs that created and maintained the middle class.  Good luck with that, Mr. President.  Imagine that you’re a young person, freshly graduated, either from high school or even community college.  uHow are you going to enter the workforce?  How proficient are you at coding?

I’m not a Luddite.  I embrace my high-tech gadgets, from my smart phone (and now smart watch) to my flat-screen television.  And I recognize that robots can provide much benefit to consumers.  No waits for attendants or long lines at Costco.  No need to carry on awkward conversations with drivers.  No need, even, to wait for a UPS or FedEx truck to bring us the goodies we bought online when drone might do the same.  Oh, what a brave new world that has such gadgets in it!

But … what of the workers displaced?  Can we afford this future?  Or should we consider taking a bold step, like Oregon did in 1951, to declare that inefficiency is a social good if it provides jobs to the unskilled among us?  Or will we just close our eyes to the vast tent cities that will inevitably grace the public spaces of our cities?