Technology has been replacing workers for a long time, but unemployment hasn't been steadily increasing over time.
The inventor of the steam shovel was accused of causing permanent unemployment with the argument "each steam shovel will replace 100 men with shovels."
He replied "or 1000 men with teaspoons."
These "mass unemployment events" aren't anything new, and they historically haven't caused long-lasting unemployment.
> Technology has been replacing workers for a long time, but unemployment hasn't been steadily increasing over time.
I think this line of thinking is unfortunately sanguine in light of the Wests youth unemployment levels and the uncharted territory we are heading into with robotics.
The beauty of the basic minimum income is that it leads to a more efficient economy. 1000 men with teaspoons thinking is a great atrocity, I don't know what else besides a minimum income will stop politicians from pandering to their constituents in this way.
> These "mass unemployment events" aren't anything new, and they historically haven't caused long-lasting unemployment.
No, what they cause is long-lasting shifts in the distribution of the rewards of production to more heavily favor capital than labor, rather than causing long-lasting unemployment.
As long as people have some use in productivity, and need to work to eat (limiting price elasticity of labor supply on the low end), technology won't produce long-lasting unemployment, just, under ceteris paribus assumptions, long-lasting reductions in the ratio between the market-clearing price for the average unit of labor and the value of the total output of the economy.
As long as people have some use in productivity, and need to work to eat (limiting price elasticity of labor supply on the low end), technology won't produce long-lasting unemployment, just, under ceteris paribus assumptions, long-lasting reductions in the ratio between the market-clearing price for the average unit of labor and the value of the total output of the economy.
Technological change can be classified as labor-augmenting, capital-augmenting and labor-neutral change. You seem to be claiming that all technological change is capital-augmenting.
There's been quite a bit of research in this area, and your claim is overwhelmingly refuted... in fact, Daron Acemoglu has multiple research projects purporting to show that most technological change is labor-augmenting.
> You seem to be claiming that all technological change is capital-augmenting.
No, I'm discussing the effect of capital-augmenting technological change, and specifically why I would expect depressed wages rather than long-lasting unemployment to be the principal durable effect of such change.
I'm not making any claim about the distribution of technological change among labour-augmenting, capital-augmenting, and labor-neutral categories.
The inventor of the steam shovel was accused of causing permanent unemployment with the argument "each steam shovel will replace 100 men with shovels."
He replied "or 1000 men with teaspoons."
These "mass unemployment events" aren't anything new, and they historically haven't caused long-lasting unemployment.