> The low unemployment rate is proof that this techno optimism isn’t true.
An observation that was already obvious in the 19th century:
"The extraordinary productiveness of modern industry… allows of the unproductive employment of a larger and larger part of the working-class, and the consequent reproduction, on a constantly extending scale, of the ancient domestic slaves under the name of a servant class, including men-servants, women-servants, lackeys, etc. [footnote: Between 1861 and 1870 the number of male servants nearly doubled itself. It increased to 267,671. In the year 1847 there were 2,694 gamekeepers (for the landlords' preserves), in 1869 there were 4,921.]"
Chapter 15 of volume 1 of Marx's Capital. Today the servants are delivery people, Uber drivers, personal chefs and assistants, maid services, etc.
An observation that was already obvious in the 19th century:
"The extraordinary productiveness of modern industry… allows of the unproductive employment of a larger and larger part of the working-class, and the consequent reproduction, on a constantly extending scale, of the ancient domestic slaves under the name of a servant class, including men-servants, women-servants, lackeys, etc. [footnote: Between 1861 and 1870 the number of male servants nearly doubled itself. It increased to 267,671. In the year 1847 there were 2,694 gamekeepers (for the landlords' preserves), in 1869 there were 4,921.]"
Chapter 15 of volume 1 of Marx's Capital. Today the servants are delivery people, Uber drivers, personal chefs and assistants, maid services, etc.