Computer Programmers and Teamsters
2nd June 2013
Steve Sailer looks at the intersection of technology and politics.
I’m not sure that the blanket statement that these days “personal upper-body strength is irrelevant” is true. Guys who lift things for a living largely operate in the “non-tradeable” sector of the economy.
The irrelevance of upper body strength is true in some jobs. For example, computer programmers don’t have to lift anything heavier than the lids of their laptops. And, perhaps not coincidentally, programmers are notoriously prone to self-defeating universalist ideologies like libertarianism and open borders. The Gang of Eight openly conspires with the billionaires of Silicon Valley to lower the pay of programmers, and what do programmers do about it?
By contrast:
They are in the “non-tradable” sector so their jobs can’t be easily outsourced to Foxconn in China. Their jobs, however, could be easily insourced and gradually replaced with, say, immigrants, illegal or even skilled foreign set workers via H-1B visas. And yet the entire concept of granting visas to, say, Mexico City’s television set workers to lower Hollywood’s costs has never, as far as I know, been publicly aired.
One reason is that the guys who lift things on sets in Burbank don’t want it to happen. And, unlike computer programmers, they aren’t wracked with guilt over it not happening.
Thereby showing more sense than the ‘you must have a four-year degree before we’ll even talk to you’ crowd.