The word “automation” is attributed to D. S. Harder, a former vice president of manufacturing at the Ford Motor Company, who coined the term in 1946 after witnessing recently installed controls at an engine manufacturing plant in Cleveland. Today, the word is on everyone’s lips as the nation continues to consider successive advances in automation and the rise of artificial intelligence. In Chasing Automation: The Politics of Technology and Jobs from the Roaring Twenties to the Great Society, Jerry Prout traces the political history of the “technology-versus-jobs” debate from 1921 to 1966 (the height of U.S. industrial power), aiding our understanding of how previous legislators sought to address concerns about the employment impacts of automation.
The critical question of this debate was—and still is—whether technology and automation destroy or create more jobs in the aggregate. The followup question was—and still is—whether technology solves the problem it seemingly creates. Prout focuses on the reforms advocated by the “liberal-labor coalition” of the mid-20th century, arguing that this coalition never realized its long-held goal of, on the one hand, predicting the employment impacts of continuous technological advances and, on the other, minimizing any negative impacts. The potential solutions supported by the coalition were similar to those offered today: collect better data on employed and unemployed workers, implement shorter workweeks, introduce universal basic income, and improve education and training. According to Prout, understanding the political history of previous reforms can better inform our discussions about automation in the 21st century.
In the opening chapters of the book, the author describes how the U.S. government acknowledged the challenges of joblessness shortly after World War I. President Warren G. Harding, who served in office from 1921 to 1923, was urged to convene a conference—the Presidential Conference on Unemployment—to explore ways to ameliorate the issue of unemployment during the postwar recession. Although the conference only recommended that the issue be delegated back to state and local governments, it did demonstrate public concern with unemployment. And while joblessness would largely disappear from policy debates as the economy boomed during the so-called Roaring Twenties, academics, labor leaders, and other reformers became more concerned about the impact of a “dizzying array of new labor-saving machinery in the workplace” that was displacing workers in specific industries.
Prout describes the fate of three bills proposed by Senator Robert Wagner in the 70th Congress (1927–29) and then reintroduced in the 71st Congress (1929–31). One of the bills proposed more funding for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, aiming to improve the Bureau’s unemployment analysis; another proposed the establishment of a network of state employment exchanges; and a third proposed the establishment of a federal forecasting and planning capability that could anticipate technological advances. The three bills, which aimed to address the needs of people Wagner described as “technologically” and “cyclically” unemployed, stalled in the 70th Congress and were either vetoed or circumvented in the 71st Congress. However, the stock market crash of 1929 prompted President Herbert Hoover to sign a measure in July 1930 for expanding and improving the counting of unemployed workers.
Prout goes on to describe how the federal government took more responsibility for the unemployment issue during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosvelt, carefully tracing the original proposals that laid the legislative foundation for the famous New Deal era (1933–38). Senator Wagner proposed legislation to federalize unemployment compensation by requiring employers to contribute to state unemployment funds, and this compensation provision was incorporated into the Social Security Act of 1935. Additionally, Senator Hugo Black proposed the establishment of a 30-hour workweek, a provision amended to 44 hours in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which also established a minimum wage. Still, the New Deal coalition seemed unable to relieve the nation of persistently high unemployment rates.
Prout next describes how World War II brought on new optimism about the impact of technology and triggered a debate about the relationship among technology, employment, and the federal government. The liberal-labor coalition argued that a government budget planning mechanism similar to that which drove full employment during World War II could be used during peacetime, believing that such a mechanism could protect jobs by forecasting the path of technology. However, the conservative coalition dominating Congress after the war opposed any “heavy-handed” command-and-control policies, shunning the budget planning mechanism (and the declaration of employment as a right) and adopting a weaker legislation that would become known as the Employment Act of 1946. This coalition sought to redefine the technology-versus-jobs debate in terms of the positive effects of technology on economic and employment growth.
The last chapters of the book describe legislation passed during the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. After assuming office, President Kennedy quickly signed the Area Redevelopment Act (1961) and then the Manpower Development and Training Act (1962), reviving the reforms of the liberal-labor coalition. In 1964, President Johnson signed a bill establishing the National Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economic Progress, a body that, in a report completed in 1966, recommended 14 years of free public education, basic income for all Americans, infusions of federally subsidized venture capital and targeted infrastructure improvement for depressed areas, and a program of public works. However, by 1966, the United States had shifted its focus to Vietnam and inflation, and Prout argues that the commission failed to realize the liberal-labor coalition’s long-held goal: establishing an economic forecasting mechanism.
Chasing Automation is a well-rounded and well-researched book appropriate for both laypeople and those more involved in labor economics. By supplementing the political record with comments from labor leaders like Walter Reuther and economists such as William Beveridge, Prout carefully describes not only the political history and significant solutions surrounding the technology-versus-jobs debate of the mid-20th century but also the historical context and prevailing economic thought of the time. The author also acknowledges that the debate could never answer the central question whether automation displaces more workers or creates more jobs for workers. This may be the reason why the reformers discussed in the book never fully attained their goals. Nonetheless, as we grapple with this question, looking backward can inform our current discussions on the relationship between automation and employment.
United States Department of Labor
