Jobs rendered obsolete?

The U.S. Postal Service appears to be the latest casualty in digital technology's slow but steady replacement of working humans. Due to rise in the technology sector, the post office will have to scale back its operations drastically, or simply shut down altogether. That's 600,000 people who would be out of work, and another 480,000 pensioners facing an adjustment in terms. 


People are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than they did four years ago, opting for electronic bill payment and other net-enabled means of communication over envelopes and stamps. And this change isn't only being seen in the postal service industry, but is affecting countless other domains as well. Shortly, technology will be replacing all the manual and menial jobs that once belonged to workers. 

Technologies such as the assembly line were less important for making production faster than for making it cheaper, and labourers more replaceable. Now that we're in the digital age, we're using technology the same way: to increase efficiency, lay off more people, and increase corporate profits.

Every new computer program is basically doing some task that a person used to do. But the computer usually does it faster, more accurately, for less money, and without any health insurance costs. 

While this is certainly bad for workers and unions, you have to wonder just how truly bad is it for people. Isn't this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with "career" be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?