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> Re the 'long game' discussion for finance and machinisation. The firm has literally been doing this for a few centuries so this hasn't been the original goal.
by jdc 6y ago
> Re the 'long game' discussion for finance and machinisation. The firm has literally been doing this for a few centuries so this hasn't been the original goal. I don't think it's come up yet as a current goal, although in all honesty I can see the appeal from a finance perspective. The farmer is the middleman we can cut out and replace by machines. First thought then is - what does it matter what the background of the owner doing the machinisation is?
Sounds an awful lot like deskilling, so hopefully the labour concerned has an exit strategy.
- wjnc 6y agoI don't want to sound totally econofuturoptimistic, but No, it's not de-skilling in my book. I'd venture robotisation is actually re-skilling or up-skilling. Or in other words: the average education level of the employees after more and more capital flows in, goes up. And automisation / robotisation is nothing new in agriculture. You need a lot less labour, that's true. But that's the trend in agriculture for about 150 years (as far as I understand rice is one of the few crops that's pretty constant in hours per bushel). Modern day large farms are run by a handful of people (and an enormous supply chain on both sides). An example: The Netherlands is a substantial exporter of food, and farming is about 1.5% of GDP. That's astonishing.