Saturday, December 14, 2019

Are you a Luddite?

A Luddite is a person opposed to new technologies or ways of working. One argument made by Luddites and anti-capitalists in general is that robots and new production technologies take jobs away from people and leave them to suffer and die because they can't keep up with the progress of society.
This argument is wrong and destructive. If you are a Luddite who wants to destroy industrial progress and restrict manufacturing firms from "destroying jobs", I would like to suggest the following:
Learn to adapt to change, don't complain about jobs being lost because of automation. When people went from the abacus to the calculator they did it because calculators and computers were logically better tools for increasing production and saving money. 
Eliminating a job through new automation technologies liberates individual men to do other things - that's not a narrative but a fact. We now have 3.5 % unemployment. What are the people whose jobs were eliminated doing? They are working. You can buy a computer for a few dollars and be more productive and this benefits your life. 
Eventually, most (or all) motor vehicles will be self-driving. People will learn to do other things with their time while they are transported in a self-driving automobile. There is nothing illogical in that. You can use your drive time to be more productive in other areas.
Don't forget, there are more ways to move products than by trucks. Drone deliveries are coming. On demand production is coming (or already here in part). Have you noticed the rails are carrying packed trailers now? That has been going on for decades. Where are all the unemployed drivers? Working other jobs. Robots and other industrial advances will reduce prices, increase salaries as well as increase efficiencies. Get used to it and adapt to change. It will mean a better life for you.

We need more capitalism not less.

Read Crushing the Alinsky Radicals

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