The question I consider is whether automation, technical progress, outsourcing, and the increasing complexity of products and services—all closely related phenomena—are reducing demand for workers, especially but not only those who do not have a high IQ.
There is a long history of exaggerated concern, rightly derided by economists, with the replacement and hence displacement of workers by machines. The idea at its simplest is that labor-saving devices whether in home or factory production,...
