>the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be, as products and services automated tend to be cheaper.
There is no such thing as trickle down economics. Wealth does not get distributed in equal to its gain, it is distributed based upon many other markets. For example, if your company makes double this year, you're not going to get paid any more than you were, but if what you said was true, you should be getting paid near double. Infact, how much wealth your company makes has little to do with how much you will be paid when it comes to investment. You're going to get paid what you can negotiate for, which will be competative to the market of other individuals. Just because your company is doing good does not mean they're going to pay anywhere near double for their employees when they can get them at market rate, which is always pressured to be lower.
The products also don't have to be cheaper. Infact I don't know of any good examples of automation making things cheaper that aren't just competing with other products. Products do not have to be priced near what they cost to make, as examplified by apple products and tech in general. They're priced to what people give it value, which is manipulated by advertising and patents/copyrights that give them the ability others need or want.
If a particular company is making outsized profits other firms will enter the market to capture them. Those firms will bid up the cost of the labor necessary to serve the market.
The historic share of labor as a % of GDP is pretty constant. It has dipped slightly in the last ~15 years and some people see this as the beginning of a major change but that's highly speculative.
> The historic share of labor as a % of GDP is pretty constant.
What time scale are we talking about? I'm pretty sure that 5000 years ago, labour was close to 100% of GDP. I'm equally sure that it's well down below 20% now.
And no, it's not at 20%. More like a bit over 50%. If you take out depreciation and gov't because what you really care about is return to capital & labor it's about 30/70.
The products become cheaper because of competition with other products, automation is just part of what allows business to have a lower cost themselves.
Apple and tech in general are actually a good example of my point. Why is it that in several third world countries, lacking basic sanitation for a large part of the population, it's so common to see people in slums with last generation smartphones and big flat screen TVs?
What I meant about everyone getting richer is not that the money flows equally, but that when you need less money to buy goods and services you are, in a way, richer. Another example is Uber: I don't get a single dollar of what they make, but I have access now to a service that it wasn't accessible before (taxi cabs).
There is no such thing as trickle down economics. Wealth does not get distributed in equal to its gain, it is distributed based upon many other markets. For example, if your company makes double this year, you're not going to get paid any more than you were, but if what you said was true, you should be getting paid near double. Infact, how much wealth your company makes has little to do with how much you will be paid when it comes to investment. You're going to get paid what you can negotiate for, which will be competative to the market of other individuals. Just because your company is doing good does not mean they're going to pay anywhere near double for their employees when they can get them at market rate, which is always pressured to be lower.
The products also don't have to be cheaper. Infact I don't know of any good examples of automation making things cheaper that aren't just competing with other products. Products do not have to be priced near what they cost to make, as examplified by apple products and tech in general. They're priced to what people give it value, which is manipulated by advertising and patents/copyrights that give them the ability others need or want.