Workers of the World, Goodbye
22nd September 2014
Jim Goad points to some inconvenient truth.
There was something pathetically nostalgic at the specter earlier this month of fast-food workers demanding compensation to the tune of $15 an hour for performing jobs that require almost no skills beyond not being in a coma. It recalled a halcyon age very long ago when management depended on menial labor, when a general strike of unskilled workers could bring bosses to their knees.
But now a company called Momentum Machines is touting a device that can allegedly can shoot out 360 custom-ordered and fully wrapped burgers per hour, rendering the very idea of an exploited and undercompensated “fast-food worker” a quaint relic of a musty bygone age. According to the company’s website, “It does everything employees can do except better.” The machine will also presumably never call in sick, never get an order wrong, and will not tamper with food due to spite or boredom. It will also never demand a raise. According to the company’s co-founder, “Our device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient. It’s meant to completely obviate them.”