They’re good for us as consumers as they make things cheaper and they’re good for socialism as they reduce the amount of labor needed overall. As for the price (price being different than value), it lags behind a little bit. When the machine turns 5G of materials into 5G of product, the price may still be 7G for a time. But eventually it stabilises towards its actual exchange value. It’ll go down to 6G, then 5G as capitalists try to find an angle to sell more of their products. Then a better machine needs only 4G of material to make one item and the cycle repeats.
This assumes the machine does everything with 0 human labor which even today doesn’t exist, even automated machines need someone to calibrate them the first time around. The worker is paid 1G per day no matter how much he produces so less expensive machines that process 4G of raw materials instead of 5G are still interesting. 5 products in a day at 5G means you pay 26G (5x5 + 1 in salary). 5 products at 4G means expenses of 21G, 4G suddenly appeared as profit because the worker is still only being paid 1G for his day of work.
edit: and I forgot to take into account that the machine loses a bit of value every time it creates a commodity since it suffers wear and tear. It transfers some of its value to the item, but doesn’t create any - not like a human that can survive on 1G a day and come back to work the next day to produce 2 or more chairs.
They’re good for us as consumers as they make things cheaper and they’re good for socialism as they reduce the amount of labor needed overall. As for the price (price being different than value), it lags behind a little bit. When the machine turns 5G of materials into 5G of product, the price may still be 7G for a time. But eventually it stabilises towards its actual exchange value. It’ll go down to 6G, then 5G as capitalists try to find an angle to sell more of their products. Then a better machine needs only 4G of material to make one item and the cycle repeats.
This assumes the machine does everything with 0 human labor which even today doesn’t exist, even automated machines need someone to calibrate them the first time around. The worker is paid 1G per day no matter how much he produces so less expensive machines that process 4G of raw materials instead of 5G are still interesting. 5 products in a day at 5G means you pay 26G (5x5 + 1 in salary). 5 products at 4G means expenses of 21G, 4G suddenly appeared as profit because the worker is still only being paid 1G for his day of work.
edit: and I forgot to take into account that the machine loses a bit of value every time it creates a commodity since it suffers wear and tear. It transfers some of its value to the item, but doesn’t create any - not like a human that can survive on 1G a day and come back to work the next day to produce 2 or more chairs.