Hank Williams, author of the blog Why Does Everything Suck, has a cynical view of the recent economic crash claiming that it has more to do with technology making people and their jobs obsolete. But the numbers, and some history, show this to be completely untrue.

Williams writes:

The problem is that we are in this awful in-between phase of our planets productivity curve. Technology has vastly reduced the number of workers and resources that are required to make what the planet needs. This means that a small number of people, the people in control of the creation of goods, get the benefit of the increased productivity. When we get to the end of this curve and everyone can, in essence, be their own manufacturer, things will be good again. But until we can ride this curve to its natural stopping point, there will be much suffering, as the jobs that technology kills are not replaced.

The fact is technology, throughout history, has increased the number of jobs, not diminished them. Further, the new jobs created are often higher paying jobs.  ATMs, for instance, do away with bank tellers, but then we need people to make and maintain the ATMs.

I wrote about this trade off several months ago. I linked to a Slate article listing the dozens of industries put out of business by new technology over the last century. Yet instead of declining jobs and growth, the  last century has been one of prosperity.

Technology helps make us a more efficient society, allowing fewer people to do one task and devote time to another. The U.S. used to employ the vast majority of its citizens in food production, but now less than one percent of our GDP comes from agriculture yet we produce more food than before. All those people once focused on growing and harvesting food went on to build new industries like movies, air transportation, computers, and the internet.

Speaking of the internet, how did that Dot Com Boom go? A massive increase in job creation in an all new industry not seen before. Yes there was a crash, millions of jobs lost. And you know what? We recovered and built sustainable jobs in that same all new industry.

Of course, it would help if Williams looked at where the jobs are actually being lost.  The financial industry hasn’t lost more than 300,000 jobs because of better technology, but rather unregulated greed, corruption, and bad investments. The mortgage and construction industries have lots hundreds and thousands of jobs because of more than a decade of over investment and now a large drop in people not wanted to buy new houses.

The jobs lost are not just low-skilled or low-income jobs. This economic crash is the result of many, many issues including many industries not adapting to new technology rather than simply being made obsolete (see the auto and newspaper industries). After the end of this recession, the U.S. and most other countries will have reprioritized their resources, both in terms of dollars and labor. Maybe more people will be available to research and build a massive green technology industry. How about turning stem-cells into a viable business? What haven’t I thought of? Who would have thought 10 years ago that writing 140 characters would be a billion dollar business? By removing some jobs, we free up resources, both people and dollars, to do more in other places.

It’s a sad time to try to put a silver lining on job losses, especially when many of my friends are accepting unemployment for the first time.  But there is a silver lining for our economy few look at.  New, better jobs.

Slate posted a list of all the industries that have been hurt or put out of business because of improving technology. This includes typewriters to turntables to toll collectors (replaced by E-ZPass) and film cameras.  They don’t even mention horse and buggy.  Agriculture is the best example. Once the dominant economic force in this country, now agriculture is less than one percent of its GDP.

The economy keeps growing because new industries create new jobs, and often these new jobs are better. They require more skill and pay more money, lifting the living conditions of the nation as a whole.  This is why loosing toll workers and bank tellers to automatic systems isn’t a bad thing. It’s an opportunity.

Technology helps free human labor for the jobs technology can’t do.  As technology improves, it can replace human labor more and more.  Humans used to have to ride their horse or bike themselves, but soon let automobiles do the hard work. We used to do hard math on paper until calculators and computers did the work for us. This doesn’t make us lazy or stupid or worthless. It lets us move on to the next job.

Technology can’t problem solve or think on its feet like humans can (not yet at least).  More people can now work as problem solvers, as nurses, technicians, or repairmen for all our gadgets. These jobs require training, so there’s also trainers to hire. Because of the qualifications, these jobs pay more than being the toll worker or bank teller.  That is a good thing.

Thomas Friedman showed in his book The World is Flat why outsourcing isn’t the bad word, but a benefit to the United States and the world. China, India, and other countries take the jobs we don’t want. They take simple accounting, doctoral, or easy-to-do customer service jobs that Americans want higher wages for but don’t enjoy doing. To an Indian coming out of school, these outsourced jobs are the ticket out of poverty. They are fought over by thousands of applicants for a fraction of the pay Americans get.  When they get the job, they are excited and motivated because the job is so prestigious.  They make more money than they would have without the outsourced job, work more productively, saving companies money.  These workers then use their new middle-class wages to buy more goods (some American even) and educate their children allowing the next-generation to have more.  This is how a country builds wealth.

Watching entire industries crash is frustrating, but inevitable.  The U.S. automotive industry wants a bailout for their lack of innovation and market success, but what about newspapers and the recording industry. Do they get bailouts too? The United States needs to encourage the next-generation of technology to flourish so it can replace these jobs with more, better jobs increasing our economy and wealth.  There is a silver lining to even this economic collapse. It gives the nation and world a chance to learn from mistakes (however unlikely) and build a stronger nation with better jobs tomorrow. Now accepting applications.