The question is who's going to foot the bill for the 55 year old coal miner that's job gets eliminated. Or the 55 year old Cobol programmer. or name your favorite current programming paradigm in a few years. Most people are paid basically enough to survive may be support a family. Also, a lot of people don't want office jobs. And just about everyone advocating for "free markets" don't want to invest in people, just assets.
> The question is who's going to foot the bill for the 55 year old coal miner that's job gets eliminated
That, and your other questions, are the important questions that noise about saving legacy jobs distracts from. And mostly it's just noise; the people arguing against those who dare to talk about how to manage the transition with fantasies about avoiding it altogether invariably fail to save the jobs, they just prevent the creation of structures to assure that some of the gains from the transition go to ease the effects on those displaced.
> But these are all problems that can be addressed by public policy. Unemployment benefits can cushion the short-term blow to the newly unemployed. A higher minimum-wage or earned-income-tax-credit can help those with lower paying jobs. And a more progressive tax system can prevent any rise in income inequality.
> "But these are all problems that can be addressed by public policy. Unemployment benefits can cushion the short-term blow to the newly unemployed. A higher minimum-wage or earned-income-tax-credit can help those with lower paying jobs. And a more progressive tax system can prevent any rise in income inequality."
That doesn't sound particularly "conservative" to me
