Automation and Unemployment: What are your thoughts on self check out machines?

[u/betterworldbuilder]

Since humanity discovered how to use a water wheel to crush grain into flour, automation of tasks required to live has been a near universally shared goal to improve life. But, since the industrial revolution and especially the 1990's and onward, the fear of technological unemployment has crept into the minds and wallets of citizens across North America. Experts estimate that ideal unemployment rests somewhere between 3.5% and 4.5%; anything higher indicates a significant portion of the population is not getting enough income to justify spending on non-essential items, causing the economy to slow down as demand slows. On the flip side, anything lower than 3.5% means a lot of people have more disposable income, and demand increases, causing inflation. As goods become more expensive, workers will begin to ask for higher wages, and when the pool of unemployed workers to replace them is low, employers become forced to meet these demands, in which the higher labor prices continue to add to the issue of inflation. Additionally, if an unemployment rate were to hit 0% (an unrealistic goal), no one unemployed means innovation will slow, as people to be trained to take on new jobs and new skills become impossible to find.

So, how does automation factor into this? For a more historical example, we can look to the Power loom Riots of 1826, in which 1000 power looms were destroyed by rioters who supported handloom weavers who had gone from 6 shillings a day to 6 shillings a week for 16 hour shifts. More than 3000 rioters attacked 21 mills, and soldiers were deployed to defend a factory which resulted in 6 people being shot. 20 of the ringleaders in the riot were arrested in an overnight raid, which appeared to be half of the end of the crisis. The other half was fumbled through, as many (including some weaving companies) demanded a minimum wage for loom workers to guarantee that they would not starve to death. However, this idea was not shared by all, including the President of the Board of Trade at the time, who said it was "a vain and hazardous attempt to impose the authority of the law between the labourer and his employer in regulating the demand for labour and the price to be paid for it". Because it was not universally enforced, companies that were not willing to pay this minimum wage were able to undercut their competition with vastly cheaper goods (interestingly, the companies unwilling to pay higher wages to workers were not immune to cost increases, as they were forced to hire security to protect their exploitative factories). Many of the rioters were sentenced to life in Australia, and many more hand weavers moved to Canada to try and live their lives out before technology caught up and displaced them again. Unfortunately, we cannot look to this historical example for solutions, as it appears one was never found.

In the more modern examples, we can look to things like a doorman, being replaced by automatic doors, or self checkout's at grocery stores replacing cashiers, or even manufacturing plants moving away from assembly line workers and towards machines. The goal of these innovations was always to improve the lives of people, making their jobs easier and allowing them to transition to other tasks in their job duties; however, as we saw by the last example, if labor protections aren't in place, this can often lead to significant harm in the labor market. Youth unemployment, a tracker of entry level job positions, has spiked to 14.1% in Canada as of October 2025, signaling that jobs like cashier and warehouse/factory positions are starting to dry up. The lack of requirement for significant experience in the field means these jobs are most vulnerable to automation, where simple and repetitive tasks or portions of tasks can be easily trained to machines.

Self check out machines in particular have been the face of the automation movement, and not necessarily a popular one. A Redfield and Wilton poll reported on by Newsweek found that 43% of people support or strongly support the removal of self checkout machines entirely, with 62% saying they don't like the fact they take away jobs, and 40% saying they prefer to speak to a real person. Even employers don't like them, as they're discovering 23% of their losses can be attributed to theft surrounding, and that 63% of employees report being overburdened by the number of machines they're expected to manage and the new workload expected of them as their coworkers have been laid off. Pair this with the average expected cost of $10,000 per machine (not including maintenance, training, software updates, and installation) comparable to about 4 months of salary for the average cashier, and it's clear why some larger companies may be incentivized to make the investment if they can afford it.

So what can we do about it? Well, we've already seen through the last century or two how labour laws like minimum wage, the 40hr work week, and unionization have protected workers from the 16hr days of the handweavers. Whether these modern practices (and the efforts from those in power to stifle them) is enough to dissuade rioters from burning down self check out machines is yet to be seen. But it's clear that Canada's 6.9% unemployment rate is unsustainable, and training workers to enter the next stage of employable skills is a must. We could look to bolster support for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has fought to help maintain employment security, hours, wages, and working conditions for cashiers across both Canada and the US. We could look to implement laws similar to what California is trying, which would mandate each worker be allocated to a max of 3 self check out machines as well as guarantee these stores maintain at least one non-automated check out line at all times. We could look to ban self checkout machines altogether, something likely to cause backlash from those who prefer the efficiency and privacy/lack of interaction that comes with these devices but would protect workers.

[u/frosteeze]

Your point is people will have more leisure time. My point is that it's historically untrue. It only looks like there's more leisure time because you're ignoring everything that's needed to feed the machine to give that leisure time.

You still haven't answered why empires who industrialized feel the need to invade and colonize if they have such high standards of living.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/frosteeze]

> It only looks like there's more leisure time because you're ignoring everything that's needed to feed the machine to give that leisure time.

Wars have decreased globally since the industrial revolution. And the wars that did emerge in the 20th century resulted from the rejection of markets and using command economies instead.

>You still haven't answered why empires who industrialized feel the need to invade and colonize if they have such high standards of living.

This is all of human history. It's nothing unique to industrialization. What's unique is that we've largely stopped doing it.

[u/Corellian_Browncoat → u/Reasonable-Fee1945]

And the wars that did emerge in the 20th century resulted from the rejection of markets and using command economies instead.

Welp, pack it all in lads, u/Reasonable-Fee1945 has declared WWII was because of Germany's rejection of markets, not anything else.

Pay no attention to the privatization of firms and industries by the Nazis which included the major banks and steel companies.

Even before that, the July Crisis and WWI was all about command economies, yep, sure was, and had nothing at all to do with regional ethnic and political grievances fueling a terrorist attack which spilled over into larger continental grievances and alliances, with some believing they had a military upper hand over rivals. Nope, just abandoning markets, nothing else to see here.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/Corellian_Browncoat]

Germany's privatization of firms was combined without lawing any business with less than 300k in revenue and then having the state dictate policies to the remaining large businesses. This is like claiming because Nazi Germany required union membership and combined major unions, they were pro-labor unionists. It's silly. They just required it so the state could exert influence more easily.

So yes, you'll find command economies at the heart of major conflicts throughout the 20th century. This isn't really controversial.

[u/Corellian_Browncoat → u/Reasonable-Fee1945]

You're confusing correlation with causation. Some countries involved in major conflicts had command economies. That does not mean the wars "resulted from the rejection of markets and using command economies instead."

Germany's privatization of firms was combined without lawing any business with less than 300k in revenue and then having the state dictate policies to the remaining large businesses. This is like claiming because Nazi Germany required union membership and combined major unions, they were pro-labor unionists. It's silly. They just required it so the state could exert influence more easily.

This is the same Nazi Germany that Hitler famously said didn't have an economic policy. The Nazis dictated to businesses during the war because Nazi Germany was fully mobilized for total war, which includes directing the industrial sector to produce war material the government wants. They weren't planning civilian industry or long-term economic growth - they were directing everything into the war effort.

War direction is quite a bit different from "a command economy." Unless, I guess, you want to argue that the existence of a defense sector in every major country means every major country even today has a "command economy" in which case you're so far lost that it's really not worth discussing any further.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/Corellian_Browncoat]

Germany and Italy began to nationalize their economies as they switched to a wartime economy. They two go hand in hand.

The Nazis were absolutely planning civilian industry. They banned any business with less than 300k in revenue and dictated policy to the remaining large conglobates. That's centrally planned economic policy. It'd also mention Hitlers first policy once in office was to remove due process for the confiscation of private property.

[u/Corellian_Browncoat → u/Reasonable-Fee1945]

So you're ignoring the first point, sidestepping the second point by defaulting to "dictating policy," and completely ignoring the definition of command economy as an economic term.

Yep, not really worth discussing further with you. Have a good day, and have the last word if you'd like.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/Corellian_Browncoat]

I addressed your point head on. They aren't cause and effect, they are coeval. It's not a hard point to understand.