I’ve been saying for a while that automation is a threat – the kind of glacial threat that encroaches relentlessly and unstoppably. Immigrants are very much not the problem – in fact, net immigration has been *out* of the US (to Mexico) for a number of years, giving lie to the fear-mongering (we know it’s not based in fact, but this is a pretty stark example of how far off base it is).
Bill Gates’ idea of an automation tax gets at the essential idea (although I’m not keen on giving money to the government – I’d rather see that money re-routed to displaced workers directly). Automation is implemented when it saves money for the company – that cost savings doesn’t just eliminate jobs, it levels them up, meaning that 100 low-skilled jobs (better done by automation) are replaced by 3 high-skilled jobs. This has been going on for decades, and at a time when education is scandalously priced – many people can’t afford retraining. This intersects with a sexist culture that devalues “female” work that involves softer skills like caregiving that are not easily automated, such that many men in “masculine” work (like, say, coal-mining) are uninterested in re-training for “feminine” work (like, say, nursing). The idea of using some of the cost-savings of automation to retrain workers and providing a basic “floor” of support/healthcare below which we’re unwilling to let people fall during this transition to an automated society is both humane and sound societal governance.
Fear mongering about a non-existent immigrant “problem” is the opposite.
So we need to fight the fear-mongering of the current president, but when you’re looking for alternate political candidates to support, find someone who understands this essential fact about the future – it will be automated.
My reddit exposition about the need for a future transition away from wage labor and into capital labor: https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/53l41o/wageearners_v_capitalearners_in_an_automated/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/upshot/job-disconnect-male-applicants-feminine-language.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/upshot/why-men-dont-want-the-jobs-done-mostly-by-women.html
https://dvschroeder.blogspot.com/2015/08/why-cost-of-college-has-tripled.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/why-the-gap-between-worker-pay-and-productivity-is-so-problematic/385931/