> Most automation has led to people transitioning to higher wages.
No, what you mean to say is that automation has eventually (decades later) led to higher purchasing power in the system as a whole. The outlook for people that were directly automated away was pretty bleak, actually. The hundreds of thousands of lamplighters did not largely become the thousands of electricians that were needed in this new industry.
This tracks for all industries. Automation literally means far fewer people will be employed to do the same job (otherwise what's the point of it?). That dumps these workers out at the low end of the general job market, where they have to compete with an increasing number of people. Because of the desperation to get any job, the wages fall. It's only decades later that societies settled into a new place and created enough brand new jobs to make up the shortfall, or applied regulation to reign in the crazy power imbalance. That's the stuff you miss out on if you only look at statistics that span centuries and treat the population as one homogeneous mass. The people who are directly targeted by automation are very likely to have their lives messed up for a very long time.
No, what you mean to say is that automation has eventually (decades later) led to higher purchasing power in the system as a whole. The outlook for people that were directly automated away was pretty bleak, actually. The hundreds of thousands of lamplighters did not largely become the thousands of electricians that were needed in this new industry.
This tracks for all industries. Automation literally means far fewer people will be employed to do the same job (otherwise what's the point of it?). That dumps these workers out at the low end of the general job market, where they have to compete with an increasing number of people. Because of the desperation to get any job, the wages fall. It's only decades later that societies settled into a new place and created enough brand new jobs to make up the shortfall, or applied regulation to reign in the crazy power imbalance. That's the stuff you miss out on if you only look at statistics that span centuries and treat the population as one homogeneous mass. The people who are directly targeted by automation are very likely to have their lives messed up for a very long time.