Re: Big Power seniority robbers

CharlieMcCandless Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> When the bigger engines arrived in the 20s that
> cut down on the need for as many engine crews. As
> an old-time Union Pacific engineer said in one of
> the ``Last of the Giants'' productions the big
> engines ``were nothing but seniority robbers.''
> Even promoted men couldn't hold jobs as engineers
> as bigger engines meant fewer trains to haul the
> same amount of freight.

Of course that is the downside, in any workplace, of a device that ups productivity. One guy with a steam shovel puts 100 guys with spades out of work. but then you could argue that they put 10,000 guys with teaspoons out. The big question for society is how do you deal with the people who are having their life torn up? Are there equally good jobs for them or do you just toss the people on the scrap pile? If you're a good Capitalist you dump them as they are now redundant. If you're a good Christian you look after them and help them. If you're a good Socialist[1] you prevent the change from happening at all and lock the economy in a less than optimum mode.

Nobody has a good answer to the problem even yet!

hank

[1] Or a Roman Emperor. One of them{Trajan? Hadrian?] is supposed to have payed off some guy who came up with a better crane because it would put too many men out of work and unemployment (of free men) was already a major problem.