Jobs have always been eliminated by new technology, but that also has never lead to permanent mass unemployment. The fear of technology creating mass unemploym

Jobs have always been eliminated by new technology, but that also has never lead to permanent mass unemployment. The fear of technology creating mass unemployment on a permanent basis has been a persistent one over the centuries. If you went back to the 1800s and told the government of the day that in 200 years, virtually nobody in the UK would work in the textile industry, they would be horrified and imagine a world of thousands upon thousands starving in the street. They would make plans to build more workhouses, send more people to the colonies, and clamp down on immigration. If you went back about 100 years ago and told the people of the United States and Canada that there would only be agriculture jobs for 1% of the population, there would be riots as a plurality of the population would fear being pushed below even their relatively marginal living as farmers. They would fear mass starvation. Neither of those came true. Humans found plenty of other things to do. And those other things provide an immensely higher standard of living than textile making or farming.