There's a lot more factors in play than just automation going back 300 years. How about going back 30-40 years instead? How much more valuable is labor now than it was then? We're certainly much more productive since then. Plus automation has really accelerated during that time. Look at the auto industry, that's become far more automated since then. Have auto industry workers been seeing their wages go up and up during that time and not lose jobs by the boatload because they've been so valuable?So nobody makes more than they did in 1780? Except for the guys with tophats that twirl their mustaches, of course.