The Canadian automation controversy, 1955-1969.

Abstract

"The Canadian Automation Controversy 1955-1969", examines the era in which Canadians confronted the prospect of "thinking machines" replacing human labour. The automation controversy arose because workers, threatened by the thought of computer-controlled machines replacing people, and business owners, excited by the prospects of lower production costs and increased productivity, sought in each their own way to control the pace and impact of technological change. The issues generating the controversy--how to and who should direct society's adjustment to technological change--are as old at least as the first industrial revolution and as current as nightly newscasts that describe Canada's attempts to cope with "economic restructuring." "Mechanization", "automation", "globalization"--are only different words to describe the same phenomenon of capital's drive to enhance productivity and increase returns to investment through technological innovation and workers' consequent fears of unemployment. Ultimately, the automation controversy was but one stage of the on-going ideological discourse concerning full employment in Canada and the respective roles and relative power of the State, labour and capital in promoting economic growth. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)