From Re/code:
At the opening night of the Code Conference, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher asked Senator [Elizabeth] Warren for her thoughts on the tech industry’s significant, and growing, impact on labor — how the on-demand economy is creating full-time jobs out of part-time work. Several startups, like Uber, rely on contract employers. Google CEO Larry Page has predicted that part-time working will soon be the norm. Warren said the trend is inevitable.
“Our only chance for survival is to innovate our way out of this,” she replied. “We’re not going to stop tech so that lots of people will work. That’s like saying, ‘Let’s get rid of heavy equipment and let people dig with a spoon.’ That won’t work.” Instead, she returned to her argument, made several times during the interview, that the government’s position should pour more investment into education and infrastructure. “We have to invest in the two places where it works,” she said. “We have to invest in brains and people who are willing to do the long, long arc research.”
Hmm. No mention of “worker voice.” And I wonder if the senator understands all the ways in which government does impede technological progress and innovation. Anyway, Warren echoes this from the Wall Street Journal back in 2009:
At one of our dinners, Milton [Friedman] recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
Actually, the Friedman quote has an interesting history.
