Or is it? For the sake of consistency, why don’t the czars in European Parliament mandate that this “trade” be made more fair? After all, the brick machine doesn’t play by the same rules as the manual bricklayers it has replaced (again, assuming it even replaced them). Maybe we should place a tariff on all roads made with this machine? Maybe we should make sure this machine has to adhere to the same workplace safety standards as the masons and their employers had to adhere to. Maybe we should make sure that the machine plays by the same environmental rules?
HT: Chris M.
A perfect (and dramatic) example of how a capital/labor substitution emerges when labor costs rise to an adequate level to justify it.