Capitalism without workers? Technological and economic imperatives of automation, displacement and efficiency in the automotive Industry

Thesis

Parallel to the increasing use of nominally labour-saving technologies such as robots and AI, employment in the OECD automotive industry has increased steadily since the financial crisis. Such persistence of manufacturing employment in high-wage economies is only seldomly engaged in the ongoing “automation debate”. In order to explain this persistence, this dissertation seeks to understand why firms make the automation decisions they do; hence, which factors determine the automation of a labour-process. Based on this understanding, it can in turn be answered why increasing automation does not appear to have resulted in the displacement of workers in the Austrian automotive industry over the past 15 years. To this end, a multi-method case study is conducted. The study, focusing on the period of 2009 to 2024, consists of a quantitative estimation of the effects of automation on productivity in the OECD automotive industry, and a qualitative analysis of the rationalities underlying automation decisions in Austrian automotive firms. Its results show that persistent manufacturing employment is explained by a “partiality of automation”. This partiality rests on: output and productivity differentials, the production location and technology-use decisions of global manufacturing firms, the characteristics of the commodity to be manufactured, and class compromise on technology-use between workers and management. Furthermore, the analysis also shows, that the standard narratives on how these factors shape automation and work are incorrect or incomplete. Thus, in contrast to common narratives, in particular in mainstream economics and public debate, the accounts presented here extend a “socio-economic theory of automation and work”, which is tentatively related to a recent literature on stagnation and inefficiency in the conclusion. The findings of this dissertation thus not only contribute to recent debates on automation and work and their socio-economic critique, but also an economic sociology of the antinomies of contemporary capitalism.

Authors: Ferschli, B

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-b7aavjzbj
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: capitalism; artifical intelligence; industrial employment; robots; labour-process; manufacturing; automotive inudstry; work; automation
• Subjects: Automobile industry and trade; Robots, Industrial; Manufacturing processes; Industrial Employment; Automation; Artifical-Intelligence; Capitalism