There's an ideological assertion when automation happens: the workers will retrain and be better off. If it was true, Youngstown Ohio and Flint Michigan would

There's an ideological assertion when automation happens: the workers will retrain and be better off. If it was true, Youngstown Ohio and Flint Michigan would be jewels of the Midwest - bustling metropolises of highly skilled retrained workers in wondrous utopias. You'd have AI unicorns popping out of Huntington and Wheeling, West Virginia. Whether you count number of bankruptcies, overall mortality rate, number of offspring, percentage that own versus rent... The fervent assertion that going from a union job to hustling for say Postmates, is somehow the rising tide lifting all boats is baseless. Doesn't matter though. It's ideologically, not materially based so evidence is irrelevant. There Are state interventionist ways to make it work. China moved from agrarian to industrial. South Korea, Taiwan Japan.... The difference is they don't have this pentacostal snake handling level blind faith in the free market where they go around like Peter Popof preaching Hayek and Rothbard like it's sacred scripture.