
Automation Insurance: Robots Are Replacing Middle Class Jobs - jaybol
http://www.good.is/post/automation-insurance-robots-are-replacing-middle-class-jobs/
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stretchwithme
The notion that automation is somehow reducing the number of jobs is a flawed
one. Did automating farm work have the same impact?

The amount of skills and capital equipment, including robotic systems, a
society has determines how wealthy it is.

If you can produce with a machine what ten men could produce ten years ago,
and no one else has this advantage, all this means is that YOU get to spend
those nine saved salaries on extra things nine other people will be paid to
provide.

Or you can save those nine salaries in the bank where they can be loaned out
to hire 9 people on some new venture.

But if everybody has access to the same technology, the price of the thing
you're making will just drop 90%. You'll only get those extra 9 salaries while
you have a technological advantage over your competitors.

And history bears this out. Automobiles were very costly until mass
production, then costs were slashed and the average middle class person could
afford them.

And automakers armed with the technology were not able to rest on their
laurels. If they did not continue to chase technological advantage
successfully, they eventually fail. Unless bailed out by government, of
course.

So there's nothing to fear from technology. It is the source of middle class
well-being, not its scourge.

