Our society is geared -- at all levels -- towards minimizing expense regardless of the impact on quality or even on society in general. We're all racing to the bottom.
Giving people raises for automating things is minimizing expense.
Suppose Alice is making $40,000/year and comes up with a way to automate a third of her job. So you start paying her $50,000/year and give her some other work to do. Then Bob and Carol each find a way to automate a third of their own jobs, so now they all make $50,000 and have made Don redundant.
The company is now paying $150,000 in total salary instead of $160,000 and only has to pay insurance and provide office space for three employees instead of four. Meanwhile the workers who found ways to improve efficiency are making more money and have the incentive to do it again and get another raise.
Companies may not actually do this, but those companies are mismanaged and putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
> they realize they’re all potential future Dons if these automations continue.
That isn't how the economy works. Bob, Carol, Alice and the boss are now collectively making $40,000+/year more than they did before. Where does this money go? To buy something they couldn't previously afford, made by Don at his new job somewhere else, which was created to meet the increase in demand caused by the increase in productivity.
The only way automation reduces employment is if it makes goods cost less and then people choose to work less because working less still allows them to buy everything they want. But in general people don't do that. Given the choice between having the same stuff they have now and working fewer hours or having more stuff than they do now and working the same number of hours, they pick the second one.
Suppose Alice is making $40,000/year and comes up with a way to automate a third of her job. So you start paying her $50,000/year and give her some other work to do. Then Bob and Carol each find a way to automate a third of their own jobs, so now they all make $50,000 and have made Don redundant.
The company is now paying $150,000 in total salary instead of $160,000 and only has to pay insurance and provide office space for three employees instead of four. Meanwhile the workers who found ways to improve efficiency are making more money and have the incentive to do it again and get another raise.
Companies may not actually do this, but those companies are mismanaged and putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.