In the Automation Debate, Don’t Forget the Job Multiplier Effect

In the Automation Debate, Don’t Forget the Job Multiplier Effect

Emsi Senior Economist/Co-Founder In his 1950s satire Player Piano , author Kurt Vonnegut describes a dark dystopia where automation has led to a world of meager consumption and desperate idleness. The vision of workers displaced by machines predates this though, and is perhaps most associated with the 19 th century Luddite movement where workers sabotaged machinery for fear of losing jobs. In economic thought, the prospect of labor-replacing technology has a still much longer history.

The opinion of most economists has been that “Luddite fears” are misplaced. New technology is economically synonymous with increased efficiency, new and cheaper products, […]

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