I think is the best I can do to put it in plain English. People who live off of owning things want to make as much money off of their property as possible. These are the capitalists. People who live off of selling their labor want to make as much money off of their labor as possible. These are the workers. So if a worker figures out how to do 8 hours of work in 6 hours, their labor becomes more efficient. They’d rather be paid the same for that 6 hours of work or be paid more for the original 8 hours because their output has gone up. Meanwhile, the owner who owns that labor would rather it made more profit, which requires the worker to continue working the original 8 hours without extra pay. And that extra 2 hours’ worth of work goes right into the pocket of the owner. That’s is fundamentally what profit is.
In other words, automation makes labor more efficient, which creates some leftover value. One option is for the worker to get that leftover value in the form of extra free time or higher pay. Another option is for the owner to get that leftover value in the form of profit. Because nearly all businesses are run as dictatorships, a drastically uneven amount of all leftover value is given to the dictator (the owner) in the form of profit.
I think is the best I can do to put it in plain English. People who live off of owning things want to make as much money off of their property as possible. These are the capitalists. People who live off of selling their labor want to make as much money off of their labor as possible. These are the workers. So if a worker figures out how to do 8 hours of work in 6 hours, their labor becomes more efficient. They’d rather be paid the same for that 6 hours of work or be paid more for the original 8 hours because their output has gone up. Meanwhile, the owner who owns that labor would rather it made more profit, which requires the worker to continue working the original 8 hours without extra pay. And that extra 2 hours’ worth of work goes right into the pocket of the owner. That’s is fundamentally what profit is.
In other words, automation makes labor more efficient, which creates some leftover value. One option is for the worker to get that leftover value in the form of extra free time or higher pay. Another option is for the owner to get that leftover value in the form of profit. Because nearly all businesses are run as dictatorships, a drastically uneven amount of all leftover value is given to the dictator (the owner) in the form of profit.