The competitive dynamism of capitalism has pushed firms to innovate to increase output. The norms and rhythms of agricultural and craft work with their high degree of independence and control over production were reorganized by capitalists and the newly forming managerial class required to manage sprawling new corporate empires. Instead it corresponded with the rise of industrial production and the reorganization of work life. But this automation did not lead to mass unemployment nor the end of work. The concentration and consolidation of powerful corporations in the agricultural sector, and the implementation of labour-saving technology especially after World War Two, led to the slow and steady decline of the agricultural workforce. A hundred and fifty years ago the Canadian economy was overwhelmingly agrarian. The history of capitalism is marked by a constant revolution in the nature and organization of work. The increased use of effective technology leads to increased output and a lowering of unit prices. Management uses machines to dictate the pace of work and to deskill labour, separating the conception and execution of job tasks. Technologies are things with a purpose in relation to labour. Technology under capitalism is not merely just a bunch of cool stuff, like robots or computers. As Braverman notes, “machinery offers management the opportunity to do by wholly mechanical means that which it had previously attempted to do by organizational and disciplinary means.” It is important that we conceptually understand technology and labour saving devices as a form of labour discipline. It also allows management a greater ability to ratchet up the pace and oversight of work. Machines and tools enable workers to increase their output by making certain job tasks easier. The continual introduction of technology into the workplace is one of the best methods to achieve these aims. Inside the workplace this means capitalists will try to squeeze more productive work from workers for less: controlling the knowledge of work skills, organizing the flow and pace of work, and increasing oversight. Capitalists aim to increase their market share by cutting costs and maximizing their return on investment. The competitive nature of capitalism requires businesses to vie for market share to survive. This surplus value produced by workers is the ultimate source of profits. The value of what workers produce at work is more than the value they are paid by employers. Employers hire workers for their ability to work for a given wage in a given period of time. They do not have the ability to attain these things by any method other than selling their ability to work. Workers enter the labour market because they need food, shelter, clothing and other basic necessities. But the technological determinism of those arguing that automation leads to mass unemployment, rests upon an inaccurate reading of how capitalism operates. Increasing the minimum wage will simply speed up the inevitable replacement of workers by robots and thus we need to seriously consider policies like Basic Income to tackle the fallout.īut what, if any, truth is there to this? Are all workers destined to be replaced by machines? Does raising the minimum wage simply result in increased job loss due to automation? There is a grain of truth in all of this anxiety over automation. The punditocracy, academics and headline writers all agree: society will be upended by mass automation.
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