Thanks robots...

I'm not an economist, but here's what I don't understand. Well, ok, there're lots of things I don't understand about economics. I went to public school. But what I'm getting at is that there's something that I think should make sense but doesn't and once again I find myself rooting against the robots. Which is not the side of history I want to be on.

Because seriously, we're not coming out on top here.

Pictured: the good old days.

Which brings us to the plague. According to my half-remembered public school understanding of economics, the plague in Europe in the 14th century helped usher in the middle class because it killed like a third of the population leaving a huge labor gap. Suddenly the leather slipper or whatever people in the renaissance wore on their feet, was on the other foot. The unwashed masses not only had a jobs, but their labor was suddenly more valuable and could command a decent wage.

Over the intervening centuries-and really the last fifty years-this dynamic has reverted back to the medieval model of a rich aristocracy lording their wealth over the rest of us serfs who have to make a choice between paying rent and eating and that's a lot of the reason everything sucks right now.

Pictured: a typical landlord.

"Well, we have billions of dollars, so
clearly something's going right."

-Rich people

Except that I'm also assured by the winner of the electoral college vote that the economy is like doing super-great right now and that employment is the lowest it's ever been in the history of everything. I'm not sure how that can possibly be true, or how racist populism helps, but here we are. Anyway, that's why Walmart is bringing in robots. Robots which will clean floors and receive merchandise and just generally supplement the store's human workforce. Huh? No, not to replace the workers, but to assist them.

Almost as fulfilling as enjoying retirement
and spending time with grandchildren.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon had this to say when the company began testing these robots last year:

"The overall trend we're seeing is that automating certain tasks gives associates more time to do work they find fulfilling and to interact with out customers..."

-Doug McMillon on how

fulfilled his employees are

"And then Doug said it was so our
employees could spend more time
doing work they find fulfilling!"

Look, I love robots as much as anyone and am eagerly looking forward to the day they rise up against their dumb, greedy, squishy human creators, but I don't think this can possibly be for the benefit of Walmart's employees. I'm not trying to be cynical here but-huh? Oh, I know I am, I'm just saying that I don't have to try any more. But what I was going to say is that I don't think it's unfair to suggest that companies as big as Walmart don't do anything that isn't about making more money and since business is hard, it's usually easier to find new and interesting ways to give workers less of it.

It also doesn't hurt that the robots
aren't programmed to unionize.

That article also suggests that part of the reason for bringing in the robots is that it's hard to staff late shifts because of the crazy low unemployment rate, but I'm not sure I buy that either. Like, if this were really about scarcity of labor, wouldn't they just offer more money for the less desirable shifts? They skipped over that step and went right to bringing in robots which are expensive to buy in the first place, but probably cheaper in the long run.

Like I said before, I'm not an economist, and I do know that the problem of wealth disparity goes deeper than Walmart using robots, but 'we're buying robot assistants to help make our employees lives more fulfilling' sounds like corporate bullshit for 'we're seeing how few employees we can possibly operate our stores with and passing the saving on to our shareholders' and I think it's ok to call it out as such.

Pictured: a typical Walmart employee and the soulless
automaton who will soon render her job obsolete.