The manpower used to do one thing cannot be used to do another. Therefore, the labor used to do something is a cost

Work is a cost, not a benefit: the goal of all economic development is to destroy work.

I agree that this is not the way we usually think about things, but this is the way we should. 

Related to this is Asif Saleh's recent comments in this newspaper, she talked about women workers in the garment industry. They used their own labor to build a very successful export industry. 

Therefore, when the industry is automated, we need to consider what they should do next. 

we should. But we need to think about this issue in the right way. 

We like people being able to consume things. This is the purpose of our economy and even civilization: over time, ordinary people get better because they can consume more. 

As these things develop, in order to be able to consume, they need to have income. The normal way to earn income is to sell our labor-go out to work.

But we also need to look at this issue from another angle. In other words, work is the cost of accomplishing something. If someone’s labor is used to do this-such as in the RMG factory-then it cannot be used to do other things-hugging babies, growing food, building space rockets, etc. 

So, the price for all of us who work at RMG is that we have fewer spaceships-or smiling babies, etc.

The logical extension of this is that we want fewer people working in RMG so that we can have more spacecraft. 

Yes, the actual example here is a bit extreme, but the logic is 100% reasonable. 

The manpower used to do one thing cannot be used to do another. Therefore, the labor used to do something is a cost. Cost is something we cannot get from other activities that labor can do.

This means that the entire process of economic progress is the destruction of employment. 

Because only by using machines to complete the work, we can release the labor force to another task. In fact, automation will kill jobs and make us richer.

think about it. In the past, we only had things produced by one person's labor. Now we have what the machine produces, and what that person produces in their new job. We have two things, not one; we are richer.

Automating RMG production does not mean that the world will need more clothes. Therefore, some workers will have to leave the RMG factory. Is this a bad thing? 

Of course, there will be a problem of dislocation. 

Nevertheless, it is a good idea for society as a whole. Because those who leave RMG can do other things. 

It doesn't really matter what that thing is—not for the purpose of this argument. If they produce food or tea, then we have more food and tea. Or they take care of children-take care of more children. Or they build spacecraft, we have more spacecraft.

At the beginning of the process, we only had their labor products and clothes. Now we have machine-made clothes and products of human labor-we are richer. 

Human desires are unlimited. This is a completely standard assumption. But the resources available to satisfy them are not. Therefore, we humans always lack what we want to do. 

In turn, this means that there is always something available for free labor. Because people outside still want more things, providing or making more things can become a job.

I know, this sounds strange, but it is true that work is the cost of accomplishing something, not the benefit. 

Economic progress has indeed solved the problem of how we kill jobs. 

Once we hand over that work to the machine, the manpower we free can be used to do other things, more things we didn't have before. It only stops when everyone has everything they want, and honestly, it doesn't sound like a bad world.

In view of all this, we can now go back to the original question. 

If the RMG factory is automated, what will all these workers do? 

So, the right question is, what is the next thing you want to do as a consumer?

What do you want to be Or a service you want to exist? Because now we have surplus labor to satisfy the next desire of mankind.  

Tim Worstall is a senior researcher at the Adam Smith Institute in London

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