Into the Unknown - Critical Thinking

Into the Unknown” is an article found on the 13th on November 2004, it was featured in “The Economist”. This article talks about unemployment and how over the years the causes of employment have changed and also the psychology of the people on unemployment. This article focuses on the changes throughout time in the causes of unemployment and especially in America.

Does the article provide all the information needed to decide whether it is the people fault or the machines fault, that cause many people get unemployed? In the other words does the feeling of Stuart Chase true? The answer is “in the middle of the road,” it could not be a definite “yes” or a definite “no”. There are factors on both sides of the argument that are backed up with facts from sources that can be trusted.

The article informs us that, at the start of the twentieth century, the idea that machines might take away most of the jobs done by humans. Nowadays, the movement of industries to other countries will make one country gain benefit from it, but the other country will have some unemployed workers. Also predictions from institutes were sometimes wrong; this led to increasing of unemployment. The migration of minorities to the United States has led for fewer jobs for citizens. (Economist 244)

First of all, Chase thought that the future of employment will be ruined by machinery. Also it will replace men in many areas. It is true and there is no doubt about that, machinery has affected the number of people working in many manufacturing industries, they were replaced by machines that worked faster and more precise. Also the machinery did not get paid monthly, so for any business buying a machine was the best idea to do.

Also in the office industry people quit or leave their jobs because a computer can do its job. For example an employer who puts data in the computer for recognition is now not needed at all, because recognition can be found in ID card, bank accounts and many other means. This will also reduce the amount of people who can transfer into the “office” jobs, because they might not be needed any more.

It the other hand, we affected or ourselves, first by moving most factories into different countries, which can offer cheap labour and also cheap land. This is a great deal for the business’s side; also for the government it had opened an opportunity for unemployed people to have a job. This will leave people in the home country jobless. This will increase the unemployment rate of the country. An example for that is the movement of production factories from Japan to China due to many reasons such as, the rental of land, China has less strict policies on the claiming of land. China has much more workforce, which can be paid cheaper this causes the net price of the product to reduce.

At the end of the twentieth century there was a huge leap in the manufacturing industry and this was in only one hundred years.