Whatever happened to the division of labor?

Gandhi preached self-reliance. We learnt about that school, and perhaps students learn that in India even now despite all the efforts of the modi toadies to rewrite Gandhi's and India's histories.

But, self-reliance has its limits.  We cannot do it all.  Where lies the line between doing-it-yourself versus having somebody else do it for you?

Over the past few years, it has been pissing me off that I am increasingly required to do everything. Like how at the big box stores, self-checkout is rapidly becoming the norm.  Even at hotels.  Remember this post from three years ago?

I walked up to check in.  There were more than a dozen flashing electronic screens instead of people.  Yep, those screens were for checking in.  First it was at the airports, and now at hotels too!

If I am going to be doing everything, wtf! 

You see how I have been pissed off about this for a while now?  I don't see how this level of self-service is progress.  It is a rapid annihilation of human contact, that's what it is!

Misery loves company.

Self-service supposedly represents the march of progress. A more prosperous society requires improving productivity: the best way is to substitute machine labour for the human sort. Are grumblers like me the modern-day equivalents of Luddites raging about the spinning jenny?

Exactly!

The self-service revolution is reversing the division of labour. You find yourself doing all sorts of jobs that you’re untrained for – acting as a travel agent booking a trip, an airport porter weighing and labelling bags or a shop-attendant checking out a basket of goods. Meanwhile a handful of companies suck up abnormal profits by turning their customers into unpaid labourers. The real sweatshop workers in the post-industrial economy are you and me.

We do all the work through self-service and some social misfits twenty-something programmers rake it in big time.  It is also highly likely that these programmers do not do a damn thing by themselves, and instead hire people through one of the many apps.  Self-service is for us suckers!