“The cotton gin destroyed the south and it never recovered.”
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Don’t think I’ve heard that before, how did the gin destroy the South?
Um, it didn’t. I was sort of agreeing with post 12, that invention, imports, technology, trade are disruptive, even destroying of old orders, and economies.
The gin did destroy, for the most part, black cotton picking. But, they went on, or were released to do other things, and especially after the Civil War, rebuild the destroyed South.
For example, the Erie canal, was dug by hand. It gave work to ten’s of thousands for years. The steam shovel, burning wood and later coal, put those guys out of work.
I once worked in a automated golf ball making plant. Only a handful had anything to do with making a million near always perfect golf balls. With in memory of a few older workers were memories of a hundred women working in cold rooms winding rubber around cores, that were then covered with the skin.
Japan has what they call dark factories. They are dark because no one is in them. They are 100 percent automated, unless something breaks, then they turn the lights on.
This is what technologhy does.
I could imagine some day, no one working on wheat farms. All the machines being controlled from a desk in New York or Tokyo.