This seems like a strange headline given that the economy has recently shed almost 40 million jobs. But at some point with the development of a vaccine or an effective treatment, the economy will come back to normal. And when it does, so too will opposition to automation, at a time when we will need productivity more than ever to shrink the now massive debt-to-GDP ratio. We can be sure the conversation will be reminiscent of an early 1960s Twilight Zone episode in which a manager replaces all his firm’s workers with robots, only to find himself replaced by a robot.
Rob Atkinsons explians in American Compass why we will not run out of jobs and that rapid automation is likely the best thing for the planet.
We won’t run out of jobs because we won’t run out of human needs. The neo-Luddites who oppose automation succumb to what economists call the “lump of labor” fallacy; the idea that once a job is gone it is gone for good. But automation lowers costs and those savings generate higher incomes through lower prices or higher wages.
