“Automation and technology...”
Yep. I was taught in 4th grade that the inventions of the internal combustion engine and the cotton gin made the abolition of slavery *possible* for the first time.
We were also taught that Africans had been considered good farm workers because they didn’t sunburn like white people did.
AND p.s. we were taught the US was an agrarian economy which was rapidly transforming to industrialization, but in fact, most white people only farmed their own little subsistence plots or worked as sharecroppers.
In fact, only about 2% of white men owned plantations & slaves.
I learned this stuff in 4th grade.
Tell me about it. Four years ago, I move to sunny Georgia from the Northeast.
And last year the doctor had to cut out a pre-cancerous mole that was growing on my back. I’ve since learned it’s always smart to wear black or dark clothes in the hot sun to block those hazardous rays.
Dermatologists is the idea occupation here.
Internal combustion? Steam power was/is external combustion, but that was the power provider for the industrial revolution.