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- Title
SOME REMARKS ON PROFESSOR HANSEN'S VIEW ON TECHNOLOGICAL UNEMPLOYMENT.
- Authors
Hansen, Alvin H.
- Abstract
In this article, the author comments on the issue of technological unemployment. The following remarks deal with a point of only minor importance in the discussion of the influences of technological improvements. Nevertheless, it seems worth while to refute an argument which tends to exaggerate the disturbances caused by the introduction of improved methods of production; for it would be deplorable if an ungrounded hostility and suspicion against technological progress should be aroused or intensified. This is more true if the argument is advanced by an authority like the author. The author charges Professor Paul H. Douglas with having become the victim of a grave fallacy in restating the old doctrine of J. B. Say and James Mill , that the introduction of labor-saving improvements cannot cause permanent unemployment. Professor Douglas' argument, against which the author directs his criticism, is that such an improvement means a reduction of cost per unit of output, which leads either to lower prices to consumer or to higher profits for employers, and enables one of these two groups to increase their demand, so that an automatic absorption into employment of those workers who have been thrown out of employment by the improvement is to be expected.
- Subjects
TECHNOLOGICAL unemployment; UNEMPLOYMENT; PRODUCTION (Economic theory); PROFIT; EFFECT of technological innovations on labor supply; DOUGLAS, Paul H. (Paul Howard), 1892-1976
- Publication
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1932, Vol 46, Issue 3, p558
- ISSN
0033-5533
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/1883402