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I think the causality on slavery is backwards, and the article agrees... Shortages of low-skilled labor encourage automation, because then the (very expensive)
by sdenton4 4y ago
I think the causality on slavery is backwards, and the article agrees... Shortages of low-skilled labor encourage automation, because then the (very expensive) automation process becomes cheap relative to labor. The article argues that labor shortages coinciding with excess capital paved the way for automation, which in turn reduced dependence on slavery in the long term.
In this sense, cheap labor is cheap, but also a bit of a trap: it doesn't scale into undreamt of use-cases the way that truly scalable automation tends to.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoIt also does not reward backpropagation from material sciences. My favourite example here is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrara_marble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrara_marble cause its something both fancied by romans and modern world alike and it was originally sourced by slaves with cludgels as stone masons. But now its done with industrial tooling, by free man (well free to do whatever the market demands).
- throwaway4aday 4y agoWhy didn't the industrial revolution start in 1360 then?