Back on my Galbraith bullshit
But to see mechanization and automation purely as a problem in comparative cost is greatly to minimize their role -- and to pay further for the error of confining economic goals, and economic calculation, to profit maximization. The technostructure, as noted, seeks technical progressiveness for its own sake when this is not in conflict with other goals. More important, it seeks certainty in the supply and price of all the prime requisites for production. Labor is a prime requisite. And a large blue-collar labor force, especially if subject to the external authority of a union, introduces an element of uncertainty and danger. Its cost is not under the control of the technostructure, although in the planning system there is, of course, the power to offset labor cost changes with price changes. There remains the risk and consequences of a strike.
In contrast, mechanization adds to certainty. Machines do not yet go on strike. The prices are subject to the considerable certainty which, we have seen, is inherent in the contractual relationships between large firms. The capital by which the machinery is provided comes in large proportion from the internal savings of the firm. More white-collar workers and more members of the technostructure will be required with mechanization. But white-collar workers tend to identify themselves with the goals of the technostructure with which they are fused. Such is the result of replacing twenty blue-collar workers with two men or women knowledgable in computers.
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