An interesting piece by Skidelsky:
He notes:
“In the early
nineteenth century, David Ricardo considered the possibility that machines
would replace labor; Karl Marx followed him. Around the same time, the Luddites
smashed the textile machinery that they saw as taking their jobs.
Then the fear of
machines died away. New jobs – at higher wages, in easier conditions, and for
more people – were soon created and readily found. But that does not mean that
the initial fear was wrong. On the contrary, it must be right in the very long
run: sooner or later, we will run out of jobs.”