| Popis: |
Although new technology sometimes enables us to perform new tasks (e.g. space travel) and usually improves the quality of the product and the speed of production, the main reason for its adoption is to cut costs. Hence the primary effect of savings in wages is to increase unemployment and only later can the increased sales and emergence of new industries counter this effect.In my previous papers |1,2,3| I quoted 1978 predictions of unemployment in the UK increasing to 4.1 million, a rate of 1 in 6 by the end of 1983. Although these predictions were generally ignored and occasionally attacked they have proved uncannily accurate. The criticism in |4| was, as in some medieval discourse, attempting to disprove my conclusions by showing that the arguments given were not logically rigorous. Causality is notoriously difficult to prove (despite the evidence, it was possible for some time to avoid the conclusion that smoking caused cancer). The statements we made were true and the predictions, however unpalatable, have now been shown to be correct, but governments were able to reject such findings and avoid taking effective action leaving the present set of unsolved problems. |
