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Originally Posted by Flames in 07
When iggy's country makes a panel of an army of analysts who will clumsily determine what advancements make more jobs and which ones don't, more sophisticated countries will build the advancements and generate more wealth at the expense of iggy's country.
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Automation does not generate wealth, it only transfers it. Unless new jobs and business are being created from it to offset the loss it slowly erodes an economy.
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Economies are based on ideas and improvements. The value of simple labor in many areas is decreasing and has been for generations. Labor needs to evolve and adapt to what the planet wants, not pay milkmen 55k a year even though nobody needs a milkman, simply because iggy's thinks he deserves a decent wage.
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"Improvements" is the word that stands out the most in this statement. Cost savings from automation for an employer improves their direct labour costs, however depending on the numbers, it does not guarantee growth for that business. When employers are eliminating jobs, they reduce consumer spending, which reduces business for the businesses that those formerly employed workers spent their earnings at. This does not improve an economy.
Your milkman example is flawed for a few reasons. For starters, I never used that example so I'm not sure why you would suggest that. Secondly, to my knowledge there are no robots delivering milk door to door, milkmen were not eliminated due to automation, they were eliminated because the service had little demand due to the product becoming more accessible with the expansion of the grocery and convenience store industries as well as an increase in vehicle ownership among other factors. This is very different from the concept of car manufacturing plants automating and eliminating jobs, which reduces their customer base, which then in turn leads to price increases to maintain current profit levels or increase them for business gowth. This then leads to even fewer customers being able to purchase their product. If automation lead to everything becoming cheaper, there'd be less of a negative impact, do you have any examples where prices on a product saw a direct reduction after a business automated?