This is a review of Aaron Benanav’s “Automation and the Future of Work”, a book that challenges the idea that AI and robots are the main reasons jobs are disappearing and living standards are falling. Instead of blaming automation, the book argues that the deeper problem is long-term economic stagnation and industrial overcapacity: the world can already produce more than it can profitably sell.
As manufacturing—the traditional engine of growth—slows down, investment dries up, wages stagnate, and workers are pushed into insecure, low-productivity service jobs. The book also looks at proposed solutions like Keynesian stimulus and universal basic income, and asks whether they actually address the root of the problem—or simply stabilize an unequal system.
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