Des machines et des hommes…

Feb 19, 2013 Robert Skidelsky

LONDRES – Quel sera l'impact de l'automatisation, ce que l'on pourrait appeler "l'ère des robots", sur les salaires et l'emploi au cours des prochaines décennies ? Cette question se pose à chaque fois lorsque le chômage augmente.

Au début du 19° siècle Ricardo envisageait que les machines puissent remplacer l'homme, et Marx a fait de même par la suite. Sensiblement à la même époque, en Angleterre et en France dans des usines textiles les ouvriers ont détruit les machines destinées à les remplacer.

Par la suite, la crainte des machines s'est apaisée. De nouveaux emplois furent créés, avec de meilleurs salaires et de meilleures conditions de travail pour un plus grand nombre de salariés. Pour autant, la crainte initiale n'était pas infondée. Elle est sans doute justifiée à très long terme : un jour ou l'autre il n'y aura plus assez d'emplois. Néanmoins cette perspective inquiétante est bien plus proche pour certains pays. Si les machines les remplacent, que feront les travailleurs ?

To continue reading, register now.

As a registered user, you can enjoy more PS content every month – for free.

Subscribe now for unlimited access to everything PS has to offer.

Already have an account? Log in

Support High-Quality Commentary

For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world's foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, that mission is more important than ever – and we remain committed to fulfilling it.

But there is no doubt that we, like so many other media organizations nowadays, are under growing strain. If you are in a position to support us, please subscribe now.

As a subscriber, you will enjoy unlimited access to our On Point suite of long reads, book reviews, and insider interviews; Big Picture topical collections; Say More contributor interviews; Opinion Has It podcast features; The Year Ahead magazine, the full PS archive, and much more. You will also directly support our mission of delivering the highest-quality commentary on the world's most pressing issues to as wide an audience as possible.

By helping us to build a truly open world of ideas, every PS subscriber makes a real difference. Thank you.

Subscribe Now

Robert Skidelsky

Writing for PS since 2003
189 Commentaries

Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University. The author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes, he began his political career in the Labour party, became the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords, and was eventually forced out of the Conservative Party for his opposition to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 28 Comments on this article

THOMAS HEAD-RAPSON Aug 29, 2015

We are no longer the ludites replaced by machines. We are rapidly becoming the horses once employed to increase work per £ or dollar but then replaced by machines. How many horses are employed, or even alive, now compared to 100 years ago?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Cristiano Oddera Jul 16, 2014

The reason it didn't happen is that capital incomes increase more if productivity grows while real wages remain still. So capitalists instinctively prefer to have more unemployment, but more profits, rather than a better distribution of technologic driven benefits.
This implies that workers, in the long run, do not have the money to buy the goods (and services) they produce. This also conduces to the raise of both private and public debt and the financial crisis we are periodically living in.
Since roughly the 1960 the labor productivity starts to grow more than real wages do and there is no sign of trend break. There are clear signs of a great debt worldwide crisis instead.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Heriberto Arribas May 3, 2013

I mixed Ludd's idea with Laffer's idea. This curve have a maximum. Before, go up, but after, go down.
You propose one solution there are other solutions. People no need work to 20 at 65 years old, maybe 30 at 50. But this is not Wonderland, now some countries up to 70. People may not need a job but a salary. Other solution is a salary only for to be.
If the system don´t change they are not solution.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Zain S. Apr 1, 2013

Good article. One thing that I would like to point out is that more leisure time would also help lower carbon emissions and limit pollutants. This is something which is often missed in the popular narrative.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
NRA Borges Mar 16, 2013

A very good article. A revolution in social thinking? Just consider Frank Pasquale's comment below that we all Twitter users work for it. In fact we don't but indeed we do add value to it: the value of our free time that we dedicate to twitting. If you do not agree just consider what value Twitter would have from its actual US$9billion if all users decided to plug out on it. The Net is not definitely a free ride for its users.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Cox Andy Mar 15, 2013

What this all points to is the irrefutable fact that capitalism is no longer fit for purpose, and that we need to establish a new socioeconomic dispensation that will easily accommodate desirable advances in technology whilst at the same time meeting the needs of all humanity. Establishing a world wide system of free access to all goods and services with common ownership of the means of production is just what it would take to get rid of the misery and morass inflicted upon us by this dog-eat-dog system in which competing interests vie for trade and dwindling resources with scant regard to the environmental impact of their voracious greed. The consequences are only too obvious: wars, poverty, hunger (despite the potential for abundance, food production is subservient to market demand), waste (on a massive scale), glogal warming, pollution, oppression, a lack of progress in medicine (Big Pharma, for example, has abandoned research into antibiotics because it’s not profitable), shoddy goods, mass unemployment (200 million worldwide this year), and decaying disaffected neighbourhoods, to name but a few. The alternative, world communism (not to be confused with the cynically mislabelled variants of state capitalism, such as Soviet Russia, China, or North Korea), would entail the elimination of billions of unnecessary and unproductive jobs in banks, insurance companies, civil services, retail outlets, advertising, armed forces, police forces, stock exchanges, amongst others; thus providing far more hands and heads to cater for the needs of everyone. States and national boundaries would disappear as both of these phenomena originate in propertied societies. It would be a voluntaristic, liberated society, and as such would evince a far more commodious and optimistic ethos. Importantly too, communism, by eliminating the conflict between capital and labour would allow technology and indeed automation to flourish. To those who might reflexively dismiss this as pure utopian nonsense, I would say, think again. Chances are yours is a intellectually indolent knee jerk reaction and you’ve never scratched the surface of this idea. The intellectual arguments and empirical evidence in support of it are vast and complex. Its time to start thinking outside the box
http://andycox1953.webs.com/
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
J. T. G. Mar 6, 2013

A great article... Robert Skidelsky very frequently has interesting thoughts & ideas.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Anshil Nigam Mar 4, 2013

Well Put Frank.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Ralph Musgrave Feb 25, 2013

Twenty years ago there were several people in my neighbourhood making use of the increased wealth afforded by automation to lead a life of leisure: they lived permanently on benefits. And they managed it without lectures from economics professors on arcane subjects like Skidelsky’s “revolution in social thinking”.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
William Wallace Feb 24, 2013

Easily the greatest conundrum facing us over the coming decades. Job sharing combined, say, with more time spent working one's small vegetable garden, might help. But perhaps it's not enough.
Maybe what we need is for robots to have to adopt families whom they support. Make robots responsible members of society!
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Avraam Dectis Feb 22, 2013

.
Use Modern Monetary Theory to keep unemployment at 2%

If you look around, you will see plenty that needs to be done.
.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Naomi Chakwin Feb 21, 2013

I hadn't thought about the distribution of the gains....of course. Thank you.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
ha nguyen Feb 21, 2013

robot increases labor productivity, thus increasing wages for workers, including the management and control of robotic systems, design, manufacturing, maintenance, operation and programming.However, the transition to the robot will cause the process of labor mobility, the simple manual labor was replaced by the high-skilled labor- R&D, design, manufacture... which is not yet available in the society. the of labor mobility that make society to develop but it will also cause unemployment in the society. scientific research is the process of supporting the labor mobility to become more efficient.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Zachary Stansfield Feb 21, 2013

But this is altogether too obvious. If automation is to continually reduce the workload of the masses while increasing productivity, then the rewards of this productivity must accrue not just to those who hold the keys (or, in this case, the "codes"). But there is no clear manner by which this can be realized in an ostensibly "capitalist" society, where we eschew those who work but a little, denigrate those whose work is poorly rewarded and extol the virtues of those who game the system.

Spin us a tale about how to make the robots work for everyone, else we can talk ourselves into the ground to no avail. It is one thing to declare that we need to change our social thought, and wholly another to enact such a state of affairs. Should we all start corporations which pay workers to complete piddling tasks for handsome wages? Should we simply let those who are most skilled at the tasks that remain earn all of the rewards and then redistribute every penny to the leisurely folk?

What we need is not a social rethink. We can collect all the social support we want, but if the plan is faulty then it's sure to fail. What we need are actual solutions which can be practically implemented. And I don't see a lot of those coming any time soon. If you want a good hedge: it's better to be capital than labour in the age of robots.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
eric j rhoades Feb 21, 2013

We need a revolution in social thinking in that it must no longer be considered immoral to receive benefits for not engaging in profit making endeavors.

It is clear that the problem of being able to create sufficient employment already exists, even in the formative age of robotics. Take away China's massive infrastructure investment and how many jobs would be left in their regular economy? Modern productivity levels are such that we simply have more people than we need to create what we need.

We are at a crossroads, and it is best that we recognize what is. The wages to fuel consumption model is about to break entirely, but before it does we are at an age of record corporate profits. Since profits are not being directed into wages because of the global labor glut we need to find a way to direct profits into the hands of people who will consume even if they aren't doing traditional work. If we don't do this the lack of consumption will dry up corporate profits before we have a chance to re-direct them, and everything will break. Consumption may be supported through debt, as it has been done for quite some time, but that is a short term fix. Ideally people should be able to save and consume, but how do they do that in the absence of a living wage?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Ken Presting Feb 20, 2013

The role of robots in our headlines is a distraction. Truly the issue goes back to Adam Smith's pin factory: capital investment increases productivity.

The real problem is buried in Skidelsky's article: inequal distribution. The idle rich fascinate the working masses, who despise the (supposedly) idle poor.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Paul Mathew Mathew Feb 20, 2013

Excellent article - I particularly like this:

But perhaps the optimist’s imagination is too weak to imagine a different trajectory – toward a world in which people enjoy the fruits of automation as leisure rather than as additional income.

I am trying to wrap my head around taking this to the extreme - say a world where almost everything was automated - with a small number of people controlling the machinery.

Of course we'd still need some other people e.g. partners in firms who brought in business... creative people etc....

Say over 50% of the working age population was not required.

Would they just sit around all day watching Dancing with Stars while getting chits from the govt for free products and services?

Or would these people live in squalor like base animals?

Very difficult to envision what would happen.

In any event, we won't get there because we have hit the End of CHEAP Energy ... and growth and innovation will end as our supply of cheap energy runs dry

http://moraymint.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/energy-reality-intrudes/
- Jose araujo Feb 20, 2013
  
  Would they just sit around all day watching Dancing with Stars while getting chits from the govt for free products and services?
  
  Or would these people live in squalor like base animals?"
  
  Aren't these the same scenarios?
  
  For sure you can imagine different scenarios where workers aren't treated like animals
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Procyon Mukherjee Feb 20, 2013

Robert Skidelsky is right but the rise of robots is an imperative, not a curse. If we look at the number of people who would be in the working age group versus the number who would not be, the ratio is changing dramatically over the next twenty to thirty years. In some developed countries the ratio is going to be as low as 1:3 going by demographic trends.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Dominic Albino Feb 19, 2013

Here's the key, buried at the bottom: "if the gains from automation were not mostly seized by the rich and powerful".

Trading returns to capital for returns to labor is only a fair trade to those who have a fair share of each. Those who control only capital get an overwhelmingly good deal and those who control only labor get a poor one indeed.

We do indeed "need a revolution in social thinking." We live increasingly in a world of tournament payoffs, where many have little and few have overmuch. This is no longer represents the American ideal that success rewards hard work and competence. Instead, success rewards past success, and luck.

In such a world, rising average income means little because most people see no rise at all, and those who benefit the least from the increase receive almost the entirety of it. And it leads to a corrupt system, where effort is no longer directed towards productivity and increasing the size of the pie, but towards gaming the system to capture a larger and larger slice of the same pie.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Frank O'Callaghan Feb 19, 2013

There is a logic to this that is both powerful and beautiful. I am aware that the road to utopia can be rocky.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Stepan February Feb 19, 2013

Brilliant. I would not mind spending more time with my kids, so that they grow up more intelligent, creative and productive than the public education warehouse will make them.

The freed up time should be dedicated to production of knowledge. We then can create efficient interstellar travel. THEN there will be enough planets for everyone to get work again... and the cycle continues.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Luke Ho-Hyung Lee Feb 19, 2013

The current economic crisis including the job crisis actually has a dimensional problem, more specifically, the lack of appropriate real world process systems in the Modern 3-D Information Age. We cannot resolve the crisis only through the existing obsession with efficiency so characteristic of 2-D real world processes. It can only be resolved by developing and implementing 3-D systems in the real market. The “technological unemployment” problems could also be resolved by doing that.

Only 2-D real world processes in the Modern 3-D Information Age? It’s the Dimensional Problem! Strangely, nobody has considered this in his (or her) ruminations about the economy.

Please take a look at http://www.ubims.com/2012/12/supply-chain-revolution-how-3-d-supply.html
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Jose araujo Feb 19, 2013

Economic science moves at different speeds, unfortunately macro and economic politics are anchored in the 19 th century, but other disciplines have move further from the dogmas that haunt our science.

From marketing we know that consumers are the real value creators, and unless you manage to invent consumer robots you are going to stick with people for a while.

Value (price, utility, or whatever you want to call it) is a human construct, a virtual construct anchored in our social values. Production is only potential value transformed into kynetic by the act of consumption.

So in a robot world you would only have potential value, who would remain idle until someone had the means to transform it into kynetic value, if nobody consumed the goods and services then they had no value at all.

But not only value is a virtual construct. Capital and wealth are only bits and byts in a system or piles of useless rare metals on a basement. Wealth and property are social contracts that can be easily transformed.

Adds that we live in democracies, consumers are the ones who vote, so unless robots had the right to vote, society would have to appropriate the potential value created and transform it into kynetic value.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Sachin Agarwal Feb 19, 2013

Is the real challenge with automation the loss of jobs, or is it the concentration of wealth? If the scenario that you envision does play itself out, it will mean more wealth creation than we have seen before. However it will also concentrate ownership into the hands of fewer people thereby concentrating wealth. With automation economies of scale are also somewhat increased, leading to further concentration within each sector.

The problem then is that it'll leave a lot of people with nothing to do, not a lack of resources for them. This then becomes a social problem rather than an economic problem.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Frank Pasquale Feb 19, 2013

Everyone who is on Twitter works for it--we create the content, hashtags, etc. But only 400 people get paid. It's digital sharecropping--identified by Nick Carr back in 2006, and discussed in detail here http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415896955/
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Mike Chu Feb 19, 2013

What if we go oen step further. What if there is no ownership to capital. All capital, and debt, is to be owned by the king. And the society becomes the king. This would remove the profit motive. I wonder what happens then.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Paul Jacobson Feb 19, 2013

The issue remains the institutions to support a "fair" division of returns. What is the appropriate reward to capital
A new reply to this comment has been posted.