The Automation Charade

Summary

This article argues that the degree to which automation replaces jobs is greatly exaggerated by the wealthy elite in order to make jobs seem unnecessary, replaceable, and thus worth little pay. It details how much of the work that machines are portrayed as automating is actually still done by workers in the background, such that – like women doing housework – their contribution gets negated and they can be portrayed as disposable even though they necessarily support the visible aspects of economic activity. Ultimately, it calls for the myth of automation as a blind and inevitable force to be exposed as an elite-directed means of worker exploitation.