[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by GGG

1) if coal mining became not profitable because of the employees demands their demands wouldn't have been met. It's only because their was profit to be fought over that workers had an opportunity to fight.

A business cannot become unprofitable by employee demands, unless that business is foolish enough to agree to demands that would lead them to unprofitability. You are insinuating that businesses such as coal mines only have profits to be fought for due to automation, this is inaccurate. A business can have profits to be fought for by paying low wages and forcing people to do more work.

2) like the above coal miners automation produces additional profit to be fought over. This can be taxed, or paid out in additional wages to remaining employees or taken as profit by the corporation. This fight over the benefit is different from the Luddite burning spinning wheels.

You continue to bring up the Luddite argument as if I'm suggesting workers should start destroying machines. My argument is for a consumer based economy to grow, we need to ensure we have consumers. The fight for the benefit is part of the entire concept of protecting jobs. If a company chooses to automate a job to reduce labour costs, what makes you think they plan to pay those savings out to increase wages for their remaining workers?

We have never been able to create new jobs at the rate we eliminate them. Unless you can provide an example. Look at how many jobs have been eliminated by robotics or computers.

Can you provide an example for your argument that we have never been able to create new jobs at the rate we eliminate them? I understand hard data would likely be difficult to find, but I'm assuming you have some point of reference to defend such a broad statement. One example I can think which likely debunks your theory is an earlier example of your's: horse carriages being replaced by motorized vehicles. Data would be difficult to find obviously, however it would not be unreasonable to suggest that at the time, this example of automation did create more jobs than it eliminated, as a motorized vehicle requires far more labour to build and maintain than a horse carriage. It also directly increased the demand and created jobs in the oil and gas industry which were not there before. Efficiency and automation can stimulate economic growth, but only when they benefit both businesses and consumers(workers), right now that is not the case.