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You’re right, but there’s another angle. Somewhere between $5 and $10 and hour it probably makes sense for the farmer to say to hell with it and automate everything.

So the illegals are not taking jobs from mythical American farm laborers, but from skilled American tradesmen working for Caterpillar and International Harvester.

And anticipating the next argument, Oh yes, all of these jobs can be automated. If we can automate cotton picking, we can automate whatever this is...

So the illegals are not taking jobs from mythical American farm laborers, but from skilled American tradesmen working for Caterpillar and International Harvester

And anticipating the next argument, Oh yes, all of these jobs can be automated. If we can automate cotton picking, we can automate whatever this is...

Spot on.

You’re right, but there’s another angle. Somewhere between $5 and $10 and hour it probably makes sense for the farmer to say to hell with it and automate everything.

So the illegals are not taking jobs from mythical American farm laborers, but from skilled American tradesmen working for Caterpillar and International Harvester.

And anticipating the next argument, Oh yes, all of these jobs can be automated. If we can automate cotton picking, we can automate whatever this is...

Beautiful! You went right around the false alternatives.

I can remember a time. when it was theorized that invested capital was going to make people so productive, that they could work 3 -4 day weeks, have more buying power and investors would be getting a greater return.

We seem to have reverted to medieval thinking, replacing increases in productivity with cheap serf / neo-slave labor, creating an uber rich elite and massive serf population.

Oh yes, all of these jobs can be automated. If we can automate cotton picking, we can automate whatever this is...

Cotton is not that easy to damage, compared to strawberries. But it would be an interesting project, technically. I'd build a robot with very soft fingers and a good vision. The robot would be moving between rows, looking for berries of proper coloration and carefully picking them, then storing in a tray. Perhaps it would be based on this hand.

Sure the machine would be expensive - say, $100K. However consider that it would be picking all ripe berries from a single strawberry plant in just a few seconds, and it doesn't need to rest; it can work 24/7, as long as there is a light source for cameras to see in color. If the farmer's option is, for example, to hire 30 workers for 10 hours, for $10/hr to work one field, that amounts to $3K per field per day. It's comparable to the cost of the machine, especially if a single robot can do all your picking, day after day, as new berries are getting ready. With human labor you need to pay again and again; with a robot you pay once and it keeps working for you.