Paper Compares Blockchain to Uber and Airbnb as a Job Killer in Finance
In a paper titled “Field Confrontation, Between Capital and Labor – Emancipation and Alienation,” the future of blockchain is pontificated on and the main aspects of what it seems to offer. They talk about blockchain technology as a complete re-structuring or destruction event of the job market as we know it – especially in the world of finance. Many of the other technologies and revolutionary business models mentioned such as Uber and Airbnb talk about how entrepreneurship and the rapid advances of technology are changing our world and local economies faster than anyone ever planned.
What does the blockchain do so well that will cause such a monumental shift in the banking industry, specifically? Blockchain technology and distributed ledgers will change financial markets in payments, banking, securities settlement, title recording, cyber security and process of collateral management.
This paper isn’t the first group of pundits who’ve predicted that blockchain could be a truly revolutionary technology. Ex Barclay’s CEO Antony Jenkins stated that within the next 10 years that the number of people working within financial sector will decrease by up to 50%. That could include up to 280-700 branches in Britain alone, along with cutting between 26,000 and 66,000 jobs worldwide. A big question remaining, where will these people work? What will they do after?
The paper asserts that “We are moving towards [the] destruction of the middle class.” With increased efficiencies and the broad elimination of what we’ve seen many jobs be involved with as the “middle man,” the question of how people in society will survive is important. “It is a “revolutionary” killer of centralized institutions.”
The paper does concede that the idea of a basic income does potentially meld with the future of blockchain technology.
But will blockchain technology prove to be on par with what companies like Uber and Airbnb have shown us when technology meets revolutionizing social norms in business? Or, will it be much bigger?
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