The distributive consequences of automation
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Democracy in America blog | The Economist
One important factor in the decline of private-sector unions is the increasing automation of heavily-unionised manufacturing jobs. American manufacturing output has grown robustly while the portion of the workforce employed in manufacturing has plummeted. Thanks robots!
The difference between making stuff with workers and making stuff with machines has profound distributive implications! Moreover, these implications are entirely independent of questions of union power.
Suppose I own a cartoonishly simple manufacturing concern in a cartoonishly simple economy. When I employ labour, production is a matter of the coordinated integration of capital goods with valuable human skill and effort. Productive cooperation naturally raises questions about the fair division of the spoils. Now suppose I replace all my workers with machines. Questions of distributive fairness disappear! I own the machines; I don't owe the steely suckers anything!
