Two common, but pervasive, myths have gained ground that adds an aura of scientific determinism to the fatalism regarding rising unemployment: the first relates to technology, the second to trade. The notion that science and technology will eventually eliminate the need and, consequently, the opportunity for human productive labour has been gaining ground since the early years of the Industrial Revolution, and, with the advent of automated production lines, computers and industrial robots, it has attained the status of accepted truth. Each generation welcomes with foreboding the advent of new technologies, attracted by their potential benefits and frightened by the immediate costs they impose. But contrary to popular conception and empirical observation, there is little evidence to support