I’ve written a number of times over the past few years about the impact technology is likely to have on the labor market. Whilst I am broadly optimistic about the impact technology is likely to have, I am nonetheless concerned about the poor efforts currently being made to help people develop the skills required to adapt.
For instance, corporate investment in training is falling, with a recent Accenture report suggesting that just 3% of companies are adequately investing in skills development. What’s more, the rise of the gig economy is placing a growing onus on the individual to take care of their own training.
Unfortunately, as a recent report from the UK government shows, engagement with adult education is very low across society, but especially among the low skilled workers who might be most impacted by new technologies.
Focus on education
It underlines the challenges ahead in helping to prepare people for change that can easily appear certain and encourage a fatalistic mentality among the populous.
Back in the 1860s Poland faced a similar external threat, albeit from Russia rather than technology. The country had been fighting a long battle against Russian invasions on the independence of the nation, and in the wake of the 1863 Uprising, a growing number of Poles came to the conclusion that armed fighting was increasingly futile.
Instead, they decided upon a philosophy of Polish Positivism inspired by the likes of John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. It hoped that independence could be regained gradually by building from the foundations.
In other words, they responded to attempts by Tsarist Russia to erase Poland’s heritage by preserving this national identity through education. That the contribution of Poles in areas such as science, technology, cultural and economic progress was the key to Polish patriotism.
What’s more, because the movement was so strongly linked to patriotism, it urged Poles of all kinds to contribute, including women, peasants, Jews and others who might traditionally have been excluded from education at the time. This was in direct response to the closure of schools by the occupying powers.
The movement believed that work was the best way to maintain the Polish national identity and demonstrate a more constructive form of patriotism than via popular uprisings.
“All great problems hidden in the womb of mankind can be solved by education alone, and this education must be compulsory,” Aleksander Swietochowski, editor of Prawda and supporter of the movement said at the time.
Perhaps there is a lesson there in the best societal response to the changes that will inevitably emerge due to the new technologies being developed today. Time will tell whether it’s a lesson that will be heeded.
