The Luddites were 19th-century British textile workers who believed that the invention of machines and technology would destroy jobs. While times have changed, the same economic fallacies the Luddites had persist in different forms. Many still believe that technology ought to be regulated such that it does not lead to the loss of jobs. What modern-day Luddites fail to see is that technology and the dynamic nature of a free market economy make us wealthier than before.
While it may be easy to think of the Luddites as a movement of the past, their ways of thinking have persisted today. Instead of opposition to mechanized looms, today’s Luddites object to automating tasks and processes using computer technology. In particular, they are especially against artificial intelligence and wish it to be regulated or shut down to stop the potential for AI to replace current required jobs in the market. While some may think of today’s circumstances as different from those of the 19th century, economic laws are immutable and still apply equally today.
The Luddites were worried about the loss of jobs in the past, but not many today would approve of banning textile machinery to support a labor market for skilled textile workers. If regulations were put in place making such changes, the prices of textiles would astronomically increase making it increasingly difficult for many people to buy textile products such as clothes. One may be tempted to ponder why we haven’t seen the value of workers diminish significantly since rapid technological changes have been made since technological advances did put people such as the Luddites out of work, at least temporarily. Employees today are often paid much better than employees in the past and can afford a much higher standard of living than ever before in history despite countless occasions of inventions making certain job roles redundant.
The answer lies in the fact that capital goods contribute to making production easier and thus make generating wealth easier. All technology is a form of capital and, once created, capital goods can be used for more efficient production processes than previously possible. Before the invention of mechanized looms, the creation of textiles required several skilled weavers to work hard for several hours. However, after mechanized looms were invented, the process of creating textiles became more efficient, saving time, effort, and resources. The cost of production of textiles plummeted, allowing for greater and more efficient production. This made society richer as falling prices for textiles allowed people to buy more of them with the same amount of money.
While some jobs—such as textile weavers—were lost, new jobs were created. Machine operators were required to work with the new machines while engineers were required to fix them on occasion should anything have gone wrong with them. There aren’t a finite amount of possible jobs as the invention of technology makes new types of work possible. With textiles becoming cheaper, people were free to save or invest elsewhere in new capital goods. Since time was also saved, this allowed many to spend time researching and experimenting with new technologies. All the technological progress we’ve seen has effectively been a result of continuous investment in finding better ways to make goods or creating new, useful goods that would not have been possible otherwise.
A good portion of jobs today were not possible in the past, because we lacked the capital goods required to have the production processes we do today. Contrary to the expectation of the Luddites, we have only become wealthier than before and workers today enjoy much higher standards of living than workers in the past. With a greater supply of capital goods, labor becomes much more effective as it is used in a more efficient manner. Despite this, modern-day Luddites clamor for regulations on new technology claiming that the circumstances are different this time. A closer look reveals that isn’t the case.
One very common objection they have is that artificial intelligence will take jobs from everyone due to its enhanced capabilities to produce content much faster than any human or team of humans could. However, this also means that we have the ability to access content much quicker and for much cheaper than otherwise possible. While certainly not perfect, certain versions of AI models can already write code making it more accessible to everyone. Programmers can use it to write simple code, freeing up time to work on more complex projects while non-technical founders can use it to automate business processes making it easier to start new firms.
As AI and other technical tools become better, we will see society becoming better rather than worse off. Technical tools allow for greater productivity to be achieved than otherwise and regulating their usage will only serve to make society poorer.
