By Eugene Charrington, April 13, 2017 — Around 1990 the U.S., Canada, and Mexico signed the NAFTA treaty. This agreement sent possibly two million or more jobs from high wage countries like Canada, the United States, and other nations to Mexico where wages are low. In the United States, the treaty caused high unemployment in cities like Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, and other places.
Many factories were shuttered, auto companies, textile plants plus many electronic companies headed south to exploit cheap labor and less environmental regulation. Besides NAFTA, the working peoples’ biggest threat today is automation. Industrial robots are becoming cheaper. ATMs and self-serving cash registers are replacing cashiers. Self-driving cars have made cross country trips. In the near future, I can foresee self-driving taxis, trucks, trolleys, and office robots replacing human workers. And don’t forget the drones already delivering packages for Fed-Ex or UPS. I don’t know what the young folks will do.
