Our educational system is ill-adapted to train the vast numbers of specialists our society urgently needs. Nor are our national attitudes yet sufficiently altered to set a proper value on those who pursue such occupations. Yet a beginning, though it may be inadequate, has been made at several levels. Junior and community colleges are offering training for some of the service occupations which are most valuable to a society that has practically reached the limit of mass consumption. Private companies like Kaiser and Armour have been experimenting with job retraining.

The future course of our society depends to a considerable extent on Federal action which is still in an experimental stage. The 87th Congress authorized various retraining programs in the Trade Expansion Act, the Area Redevelopment Act, and the Manpower Retraining Act. This year the President has proposed a program of selective assistance to education, a youth opportunities bill, a domestic peace corps, and a comprehensive health program.

The latter program includes provisions for the expansion of the supply of doctors and nurses, for more effective use of existing medical manpower, the improvement and modernization of existing health facilities, more comprehensive care for older patients, and the protection of people from contaminated food, air, and water as well as from hazardous drugs and cosmetics.

A really successful attempt to deal with the consequence of technological change seems to depend on vastly improved schools which would provide students with the knowledge and skills our time requires. It is unfortunate, however, that the programs of several Presidents have bogged down in religious and racial controversy.

The pace of technological change during the last generation does not warrant either excessive optimism nor gloomy pessimism. Productivity gains have not transcended normal historical limits. True, computers and factory control devices have contributed to the nagging problems of unemployment. Certainly automation has caused localized crises. Yet unemployment itself seems to derive from multiple causes; among them the shift from manufacturing to the service industries, minority problems of discrimination and unequal educational opportunities, an oppressive tax system, the expansion of the labor force, and the termination of our post war boom.

Machines capable of learning from their environment have been constructed. They are able to add to their memories and refine their judgments entirely without human intervention. They may eliminate large numbers of manual workers and many individuals in the lower echelons of management. They offer the promise of a full human life which makes full use of man's intellect, generosity, and esthetic sensibilities rather than of his muscles and patience.

In the absence of collective prudence, technology can carry with it the threat of massive unemployment and the frustration of the young, and may impede the natural aspirations of groups which have not yet been accorded the full privileges of citizenship. Now, as in the past, machines are impartial. Partiality is a human characteristic.

[From Challenge, July 1962]

MEETING FOREIGN COMPETITION-AUTOMATION: THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY?

(By Arthur J. Goldberg)

Many Americans are worried about the impact of automation on employment in this country. The Kennedy administration is concerned about the problem but feels that, in view of competition from abroad-particularly from the Common Market-U.S. industries must automate if they are to maintain and strengthen oversea markets and even hold their own at home. Secretary of Labor, Arthur J. Goldberg, emphasizes the fact that the growth of EEC represents an opportunity as well as a challenge for U.S. producers. He concludes by outlining the steps that should be taken to prepare for the social and economic changes that inevitably accompany automation-steps outlined by President Kennedy's Ådvisory Committee on Labor-Management Policy

A specter of vast unemployment created by automation has been raised by a report recently published by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. This report, "Cybernation : The Silent Čonquest," warns that our social and economic institutions are inadequate to meet impending changes in technology.

In the past, similar voices of apprehension have been raised over the effect of advancing technology on employment. Take the following statement, for example: "One of the more serious aspects (of unemployment) is in the tendency of laborsaving machinery to displace handworkers at a rate more rapid than they can be absorbed in new pursuits. We must guard against the general economic loss we shall suffer if laborsaving machinery is to load us down with chronic increases in the nonproductive and unemployed."

This expression of concern was voiced in 1927. It is from the Secretary of Labor's report to the Congress in that year. It demonstrates that the social and economic problems raised by technological change have not suddenly sprung into life. In fact, the problems emerging today are a part of our continuing experience in enlisting the genius of science and technology to reach higher standards of living.

Since 1927, when the Secretary of Labor reported on the "tendency of laborsaving machinery to displace handworkers," this country has benefited enormously from its advancing technology. Output per man-hour in 1961 was over two and a half times higher than in 1927. Measured in current dollars, real output per person is over one and a half times higher today than in the late 1920's. Personal consumption in 1961 dollars is nearly twice as high.

These advances have taken place with little change in the proportion of the population employed in the labor force and with a significant reduction in working hours. In 1927 employees in manufacturing industries worked an average of 45 hours a week. This was down to slightly under 40 hours in 1961, even without taking into consideration the longer vacations enjoyed by workers. Earnings, too, have increased rapidly. Weekly earnings in manufacturing averaged $41.97

per person in 1927, again measured in 1961 dollars. Last year the average wage of manufacturing workers was $92.34 per week.

These achievements were made possible by the enormous expansion of our productive capacity, particularly since World War II. And this expansion, in turn, was made possible by the use of increasingly refined technological instruments. The electronic sensing and decisionmaking devices described by the cybernation report represent dramatic developments in the history of technological change. Their form is new, in some cases startling, but in a broader sense, they represent merely the latest step in the evolution of technology.

The possibilities for greater economic growth offered by automated equipment must be realized by American producers. Without technological improvements, no industry can profit in an increasingly competitive world. If we fail to automate, nothing will insulate us from shrinking markets and higher rates of unemployment.

This point is especially important in view of the spectacular growth of the European Common Market. By the end of the present decade, goods and services will be flowing between the separate member countries of EEC as freely as they do now between the several States of our own United States. This will give an auto producer in France, for example, the same advantage in Holland over manufacturers outside EEC that Detroit now enjoys in Utah or Alabama over foreign car producers.

What makes this advantage a matter of such deep concern to the Kennedy administration is the increasing attractiveness of Europe as a consumer market. The phenomenal rise of production in the Common Market has been accompanied by a tremendous upward surge of consumer spending power. Europe now appears to be on the verge of a buying spree at least as extensive as the one indulged in by Americans after World War II.

President Kennedy believes that this situation represents an opportunity for the United States, providing we can negotiate a reciprocal lowering of tariffs with the Common Market. Authority to negotiate these reductions is contained in the trade expansion bill, which the President proposed to Congress last January as legislation of high priority.

The results of lower tariffs would be highly beneficial to both American industry and American workers. The growing markets of Europe would become more accessible to American products. Our output would need to be increased to fill the higher demand. More jobs would thus become available for American workers. Already exports are a significant source of jobs in the United States. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that, in 1960, 3.1 million American jobs were supported directly by merchandise exports from this country.

But in negotiating reciprocal trade agreements, we are also inviting an increase in the volume of imports into this country, and some workers will suffer a loss of employment as a result. An estimated 90,000 workers would be affected by rising imports over the next 5 years if the trade expansion bill is passed by Congress. To meet this problem, the bill provides for adjustment assistance to workers whose jobs or incomes will be affected as a result of tariff action. This assistance

would be in the form of unemployment benefits, job retraining, and relocation allowances.

On balance, however, implementation of the new trade bill will no doubt create many more jobs for Americans than it will destroy. For European industry, despite its recent growth, will not be able to fully satisfy the new demand of Common Market consumers. Secretary of Commerce Hodges has estimated that the people of the Common Market countries will need an additional 50 million cars, 50 million television sets, and 135 million radios to reach the level of American consumption of these commodities. Thus, the great challenge of the Common Market is at the same time a great opportunity for U.S. producers.

The opportunity consists of increased trade-which will bring with it increased income and increased employment. The challenge lies in the ability of U.S. producers to take advantage of advancing technology in order to maintain a competitive position in relation to foreign producers.

The present lead of U.S. manufacturers in modern production techniques is being challenged as never before. In the steel industry, for example, it was the Austrians who first made use of oxygen injections. Last summer, in Sweden, I saw a much newer process which more quickly produces larger quantities of steel. The British and Japanese found the techniques which made possible the processing of low-grade ores. The ability of European economies to rise so spectacularly from the ashes of war was due largely to technological refinements of the first order.

European progress since the war and the growth of our own economy since the 1920's are quite different altogether from the ominous "silent conquest" referred to in the cybernation report. A major deficiency of the report is that it does not fully take into account the new opportunities for employment created by a vigorous growing economy. But growth depends on an advancing technology.

It is true that our current rate of technological advance has brought with it some economic dislocations. Equally true is the fact that automation has displaced many workers who found that their occupational tools and skills were suddenly useless.

It is necessary to bear in mind, however, that employee displacement and unemployment are not the same thing. Some workers whose jobs disappear are transferred immediately to other jobs. Others may experience brief periods of unemployment before finding new jobs. Precisely how many workers have been thrown out of work by automation alone is not known. Present unemployment is greatly complicated by other factors. First among these, of course, is the impact of the recession of 1960-61. However, even before the downturn, chronic unemployment was a problem in many communities because of the relocation of a local industry or the closing of a mill or mine. Long-term unemployment in these towns and cities brought the term "depressed area" to the national vocabulary..

Another factor that makes it difficult to measure the impact of automation on our total unemployment problem is the Nation's postwar population increase and the consequent rapid growth of the labor force. Rapid advances of foreign competitors, changing consumption patterns, the declining demand for unskilled and semiskilled workers,

discrimination based on age, sex, race, or creed, and the continuing migration of farmworkers to urban areas are additional factors that complicate the problem of measuring the true extent of technological unemployment in the U.S. economy today.

It is nonetheless clear that some unemployment has, in fact, resulted from automation and technological change. Whether the talents and abilities of displaced workers can be used meaningfully and productively depends on how well we anticipate the effects of automation and plan for the national goal of full employment. Though it is not practical to challenge the need for automation, it is vital to prepare for the social and economic changes that inevitably accompany the automation of specific industries.

Steps in this direction have already been taken. One of the most notable is represented by the report on automation submitted to President Kennedy not long ago by his Advisory Committee on LaborManagement Policy. The Committee, composed of leading representatives of labor, management, Government, and the public, based its report on three central propositions:

1. Automation and technological progress are essential to the general welfare, the economic strength, and the defense of the Nation. 2. This progress can and must be achieved without the sacrifice of human values and without inequitable cost in terms of individual interests.

3. The achievement of maximum technological development with adequate safeguards against economic injury to individuals depends upon a combination of private and governmental action, consonant with the principles of a free society.

The Committee's recommendations indicate that the problems arising from technological change go beyond the immediate effects of unemployment, as serious as these are. The specific recommendations include:

1. The adoption by the Government and private industry of policies which will promote much higher rates of economic growth and full use of all our resources.

2. The acceptance by Government of its responsibility for the collection, collation, and dissemination of information with respect to present and future job opportunities and requirements in a rapidly changing society.

3. Cooperation between Government and private organizations to provide a realistic assessment of what our new workers must prepare themselves for in the labor market. Such an assessment should result in better vocational and technical education and guidance programs, strong efforts to reduce the Nation's high school dropout rate, and financial support for deserving and needy students.

4. The acceptance by American management of the responsibility for preparing for technological change. This includes providing for adequate leadtime, open reporting to the employees involved, cooperaing with employee representatives and public employment services, and, where possible, letting normal retirement substitute for layoffs. 5. Support from both public and private organizations for the training and retraining of workers who have been and will be displaced.