> The elites used to pay people to stand around and practically wipe their arses, that quickly diffused as more markets developed, and there were other, better things to do.
That trend is very cyclical and depends on the state of the inequality in the economy, not on automation. Marx observed that the number of servants in England increased dramatically during the height of the industrial revolution:
> 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, lackets, 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.]
Capital volume I, chapter 15.
The same thing has been going on in the last 25 years: elderly caretakers, nannies, personal shoppers, personal assistants, virtual assistants, personal chefs, personal trainers, food delivery persons, package delivery persons (especially Amazon contractors), Lyft/Uber drivers, dog walkers, pet sitters, pet groomers, etc.
That trend is very cyclical and depends on the state of the inequality in the economy, not on automation. Marx observed that the number of servants in England increased dramatically during the height of the industrial revolution:
> 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, lackets, 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.]
Capital volume I, chapter 15.
The same thing has been going on in the last 25 years: elderly caretakers, nannies, personal shoppers, personal assistants, virtual assistants, personal chefs, personal trainers, food delivery persons, package delivery persons (especially Amazon contractors), Lyft/Uber drivers, dog walkers, pet sitters, pet groomers, etc.