A fallacy: Machine creates unemployment
Generalization: Technology creates unemployment
Santayana's aphorism: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. If it were indeed true that the introduction of labor saving machinery is a cause of constantly mounting unemployment and misery, we should dismiss all the technological improvement since primitive time periods. People's effort to reduce the ratio of labor and production should be condemned rather than eulogized.
The machine itself needs construction and repair.
The manufacturer has excessive profit to use.
Competition will make the cost of a product lower.
If the good is elastic, it will attract more people to buy.
People spend less money on certain product----the increase of purchasing power.
Technology shifts the composition of jobs in the short run; it may cause panic in the short time period,but in the mean time it releases people to pursue more opportunities of job and creates new kinds of jobs. So in the long run it will make everybody better off.
No comments:
Post a Comment