As jobs that require physical work decline thanks to technological advances, life superficially appears to get better. Cheap cellphones, video games, the Internet, social media and labor-saving appliances all make things easier and suggest that even more and better benefits are on the horizon. Formerly backbreaking industries, from the growing of almonds to the building of cars, are increasingly mechanized, using fewer but more skilled operators.
Anyone who has spot-welded or harvested almonds with a mallet and canvas has no regrets in seeing the disappearance of such rote drudgery. Consumers benefit in the from of cheaper prices. But as we continue on this trajectory, initiated in the Industrial Revolution, is something lost? Something only poorly approximated by greater leisure time, non-muscular jobs and contrived physical exercise in air-conditioned gyms?
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