Toiling,–rejoicing,–sorrowing,

Onward through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begin,

Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night’s repose.

(From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Village Blacksmith” (1840) in which the poet extols the proud yet humble nature of the working man.)

A lot of folks say they hate their job. Their coworkers are idiots, the boss is a pompous ass, and the pay sucks. The only reason they don’t quit is that there aren’t a lot of opportunities out there, and without any income, they’d be up the creek without a paddle.

There are also people who say they love their job. It is rewarding in ways that go beyond the money, and they take pride in what they set out to do day in and day out. Some are driven by the opportunity to compound their income, to expand a business. For others, typically those in social work or education, the job travels with them from the moment they wake up to bedtime.

I think most of us take our livelihoods in stride. There are good days and bad days. We assume personal responsibility because we know there are no free rides in life that can last for very long. And we have an instinctive awareness that idleness is a risky business, that too much time on our hands leaves us vulnerable to shadowy whisperers who promise something that can’t be delivered. Without an occupation, we become bored, insecure, bedeviled.

When robots, in their various mechanical forms, were introduced into the workplace several decades ago, there was little controversy regarding their value. They became celebrated widely in all kinds of media and institutions of learning as the wave of the future that would carry humanity to new heights of convenience and luxury. The idea that they could pose some kind of danger to society was the stuff of science fiction, and only paranoid eccentrics would object to them. The belief was that robots would serve us – like slaves, but without the moral stigma.

Today there is real controversy, and it seems to be coming in tidal waves. Aside from the greater debate about an out-of-control artificial intelligence that would threaten human existence (we are error-prone, and therefore expendable), there is the more immediate problem regarding the job market and unemployment.

The recent downsizing of major tech companies like Meta and Amazon translates to tens of thousands of lost jobs, with more sure to come. CEO of Goldman-Sachs David Solomon admits as much, but resorts to the same old line of reasoning: the American workforce managed to adapt to new conditions after the invention of the steam engine, after gas powered tractors, and after the internet. Horse and buggy drivers took jobs on the railroad, farmers moved to the city, and cartologists (map makers) went back to school to learn to use computers.

What irks me about this argument is that it ignores the suffering of those individuals who had invested their hearts into their organic lifestyles. It pained farmers to move to the city with all its pollution and crime. Coach drivers loved their horses and took pride in their ability to get folks where they needed to be. Cartologists enjoyed a community of fellow map lovers who managed to condense the spatial world around us and configure ways to navigate through uncharted territories.

Make no mistake: for corporate executives, the bottom line is literally what shows up on an income statement – the profit margin. Cutting costs (including workers) is part of the game. Let the government worry about the fallout.

So what will happen to the tech personnel today who have been replaced by technology itself? Who will hire them? How much salary loss will they suffer in the common labor market?

It is not just individual citizens who are at risk from mass unemployment. A nation of people without purpose is a nation in steep decline. Within that country exists an ethical and moral vacuum wherein the people lose a sense of who they are as individuals. As portrayed in the classic dystopian novels “Brave New World, 1984,” and “Fahrenheit 451,” the common man becomes part of an oppressed underclass, controlled by a ruling autocracy through abuse of technology and suppression of Truth.

Call me a foolish dreamer stuck in visions of the past, but I imagine a simpler America, one in which we live in communities where a person’s sense of self worth and social value is determined by the nature of his/her work – by what he or she contributes to the Greater Good. To close this essay, I return to Longfellow’s call to our soulful blacksmith:

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

For the lesson thou hast taught!

Thus at the flaming forge of life

Our fortunes must be wrought;

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

Each burning deed and thought.

Musician, writer, and painter Pete Howard lives in Dunkirk. Send comments to odyssmusic20@gmail.com