One of the benefits of being …ahem..over 50 years old is perspective.  Not necessarily wisdom, but one would like to think that perspective leads to additional wisdom as well.  As Hayek noted decades ago in The Sensory Order, much of what our brain processes works to align what we see in light of previous activities–mental bookkeeping so to speak.  So we understand new things by aligning them to how old things that appear similar work out.  That is what gives us perspective.

So when we hear shouts of doom and gloom, it is more possible to believe them when one is 20 than when one is 50.  Why?  Because cries of doom and gloom come and go.  And most of the doom and gloom that actually materializes is not what was predicted (but not all of it–many economists rightly predicted the Fed’s housing bubble wouldn’t end well*, albeit well less than a majority).   This is one of the reasons why many of us on this blog are climate warming skeptics–we’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt with respect to hearing environmental alarmism.

Likewise we’ve had predictions of technology destroying jobs since the industrial revolution.  Of course jobs are destroyed with technological innovation–the question is will overall jobs rise or fall with technology?  History is clear that job growth increases concurrently with technology.  To point to the obvious–someone has to make the robots.  Yes, Henry Ford destroyed buggy manufacturers and blacksmiths, but that created many auto manufacturing jobs, and many more supporting industry jobs (such as tool and die).  Economists will tell you that human wants are insatiable in the abstract; as long as we have humans, we will have needs and desires that can be fulfilled and therefore potential jobs are available to those that can serve well.  Yet technological Luddites continue to predict disaster, the latest with robots and artificial intelligence.

Johann Rupert, the South African who has made billions peddling Cartier jewelry and Chloe fashion, said tension between the rich and poor is set to escalate as robots and artificial intelligence fuel mass unemployment.

“We cannot have 0.1 percent of 0.1 percent taking all the spoils,” said Rupert, who has a fortune worth $7.5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “It’s unfair and it is not sustainable.”

The founder and chairman of Richemont, whose 20 brands also include Vacheron Constantin and Montblanc, said he expects advances in technology to lead to job losses after having read books on the subject recently. Conflicts between social classes will make selling luxury goods more tricky as the rich will want to conceal their wealth, Rupert said in a speech Monday at the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit in Monaco.

Wow…he read a few books on this, and now he can confidently speak to this?  Maybe he needs a better book.  Of course all these doom and gloom reports have a germ of truth.  Innovation threatens everyone and every industry, but Bereans should embrace this.  Why?  For one reason, we need this pressure to help us overcome our fleshly sloth, and continually retool our own capabilities to ensure we always have skills that enable us to serve others.  We should also embrace it because we should consider the interests of others, not just ourselves.  Technological change is a part of God’s common grace, as men and women created Imago Dei find better ways of doing things.  And society as a whole benefits from these changes, as resources are freed up to serve the social whole in more and better ways (on net**).

I share Mr. Rupert’s concern over the lack of opportunity for poorer members of our society.  But it seems to me a better focus to try to remove the institutional barriers to work rather than the technological innovations that make our world a better place.  What do you think?  Are the doom and gloomers finally right?  Should we just hang a “closed until further notice” sign on the Berean website?

* Now this does not mean much–few if any could predict both the timing and the way the crisis would manifest.  Knowing a bust will happen is not quite the same thing as knowing how and when the bust will play out.

** This doesn’t mean that everything technology creates is necessarily good.   Many of us might decry much of what the internet provides, for example, but I daresay none of you reading this would think that we should just end it.