[notahacker]

The labour force participation rates look rather different if you adjust them for the changing age profiles of the population, to account for there being a lot more old people and a lot more scope for them to afford to retire.

If you look at this example, it'll show overall labour force participation actually rose between 1960 and 2000 for employees of every age under 60 http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/09/art3full.pdf Admittedly that trend is unlikely to have continued through the last recession, but it's pretty hard evidence against the doom-mongers of the 1960s at least. And it's remained resilient against a number of trends other than automation, not least a marked tendency to export jobs rather than unemployment to the developing world.

Manchester cotton might not have been welcomed by India's textile manufacturers, but I'm baffled by the suggestion that the British decimated the Indian steel industry (I mean, quite apart from everything I've ever read on the subject suggesting Indian steel production vastly increased in the 19th century - railways being more steel-intensive than ceremonial sword production - an Indian family conglomerate now owns the British steel industry!)