Productivity Is Not The Enemy

Many supermarkets seem to be finding that the hoped-for labor savings from self-checkout machines aren’t materializing. The impulse among some progressives to cheer this as a pro-labor development is, I think, a big mistake. It’s absolutely true that firms seek to take advantage of productivity improvements to lay workers off and that we should feel very bad for people who lose their jobs. This is why progressives must and do support a social safety net and generous provision of social services.