> They were tools that people used to get things done.
This is exactly the perspective many executives have of their employees.
This is exactly the perspective many executives have of their employees.
There's a phrase for it in fact, "Human Resources".
Though that sounds more like natural resources, like trees for a lumber company or paper mill.
To spell it out: When horses are no longer needed for a task, they are sold or sent to slaughter.
I hope I don't have to explain how differently you and I are treated when we lose a job?
People need jobs in order to pay for food, shelter, and healthcare.
Many executives feel zero moral obligation to provides jobs to people and instead treat that as a necessary evil that gets in the way of profit. As soon as that evil becomes unnecessary, they will happily lay off as many people as they can.
In aggregate, when enough executives do that, then people will not be able to find jobs.
When they can't find jobs, they are unable to pay for food, shelter, and healthcare.
Even if the board cares, they are pressured by the investors.
Even if the investors care, they are pressured by the pension fund administrators.
Even if the pension fund administrators care, that far removed, they care about their pensioners more.
Similarly, hardly anyone takes a job out of moral obligation to the employer. They need money, and accepts the best job they can get.
We've been doing this for many centuries now, and empirically it has been wildly successful for pretty much everyone involved.
In aggregate, yes. But if you zoom in on the trajectory, you can see that it's peppered with wars and revolutions.
> I hope I don't have to explain how differently you and I are treated when we lose a job?
About the same once you run out of money. At least here in the US, ymmv in countries that have sane social safety net policy.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-uphold-laws-targ...