анонимный вопрос

The difference between an enterprise with automated and non-automated labor can be easily illustrated using the example of a kitchen. You could hire a cook, pay her pennies, and she would prepare whatever your heart desires and go to the market for groceries herself. Or you could buy a refrigerator, a microwave, and stock up on semi-finished products yourself. Such dining could be cheaper or more expensive than having a cook, but the hired employee is removed from the equation, along with all the baggage in their head, the need to rely on their conscientiousness, and the requirement to pay them regardless of whether you eat at home or at a restaurant today.

Labor automation does not even save so much as money (although in the long run, of course, it does). The main thing is that it saves nerves. An entrepreneur always strives to reduce their risks. Making the success of one’s activity dependent on someone’s goodwill is always a risk. Today the employee works hard, tomorrow they take sick leave, or bury a grandmother, or strike, or quit—and plans must be adjusted. Therefore, investing more capital to rely less on labor is always a great temptation, even if the monetary gain is relatively small.

In general, capitalism works magnificently under conditions of full or nearly full replacement of labor by capital. However, under conditions where labor is hardly automated, it always tends to degenerate into something paternalistic. One should seemingly think in terms of costs and profits, but is forced to think in terms of social responsibility. Therefore, mass manual production inevitably gives rise to various socialist or feudal practices, whereas automated production can be easily reduced to purely market relations.