>> Labour (workers, not the party) has in many ways gone backwards in the last few
>> decades. A nice example I heard the other day is car washes - in the
>> 70s or 80s that almost always meant a machine. Now it's often half a dozen
>> blokes with rags - not something we should have expected.
>>
"The blokes with rags" are cheaper than a machine and better than a machine (they don't miss bits and don't involve a capital investment). They also in many cases have chosen where they are setup and who works there for themselves.
>> One of the challenges of the future is that technological advances will put the skilled
>> and unskilled alike out of work in ever increasing numbers. That will hit the less
>> well off in high wage economies (wealthier countries) hardest. Will Britian be better off in
>> the same boat as France, Germany and Italy or will greater autonomy for the UK
>> make that easier to deal with? I don't know...
>>
See your previous paragraph, not in every case. In general, as the world moves on labour moves on, if your skills are replaced "by a machine" you need new skills or a different outlook or you need to move somewhere that still wants your skills.
That is not a political view it's the reality of the changing world we live in and shutting ourselves away is not going to change that. Many of us have been affected by that and many of us have children who will be affected by that. I have spent 39 years working for one company, I do not expect any of my grown up children to do that, those days have gone to a very large extent.
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