According to the author that we are employing civilized, educated, imaginative human beings, socially developed people, and we are demanding them strict co-ordination, no freedom of (in an industrial environment that is). Indeed are demanding complete regimentation in modern industry. And there is a gap.
The workforce reject that discipline. Now this gap has widened in both directions. Man is getting more socially advanced, more intelligent – television, munications, education, greater opportunity and greater freedom. The industrial environ- ment is getting tighter because we need to contain costs and control quality. We are demanding more regimentation from a more advanced This gap will never be bridged. My conviction that robots have arrived at the right time industrial civilization in the developed countries of the world.
Otherwise we will have continuous industrial problems that are insoluble. There has been an exodus from industry in this country. Young people do not want to go into industry.
We also have one of the highest pro rata indexes of service employees. I believe that this is right and proper. This is nothing to shy away from.
But some may conclude that we are not a manufacturing nation. We should stop manu- facturing and buy our manufactured goods from abroad. To run away from industry would be wrong. We are a manufacturing, industrial nation.
We like the goods we consume, from ceramic tiles to electric lights, to televisions, to cars. The answer is to mechanize, to automate, to robotize. Let us take one simple issue – unsocial hours. Look at the head-on conflict. Investment in plant requires that you keep the machinery turn- ing day and night. People, quite rightly, say, ‘No, I do not want to work unsocial hours’. So we do not work unsocial hours and our produc- tivity is immediately reduced to a fraction of that in other countries.
This conflict between human values and capital utilization will bé bridged only with automation and robotization. Now this exodus from industry will continue whether we like it or not. There is nothing new. We have seen it in agriculture.
Mechanization in agricul- ture has reduced the number of operators to very small proportions. Let us remember, however, that it was not only mechanization. Insect control, fertilizers, better management methods are also.
