Marx, in setting out his opposition to the arguments made by Ricardo and others, is not arguing that the consequence of introducing labour-saving machines is to reduce the amount of labour employed overall. That may or may not be the case, in the short-term, but it is certainly not the case in the longer-term, because the higher productivity facilitates accumulation. What Marx is arguing is that there is no correlation of this additional employment to the actually displaced workers, i.e. there is no reason why these particular workers should be re-employed. That was seen in the 1980's. As the coal, steel, shipbuilding, car and other heavy engineering industries were decimated, the largely male workers from these industries were not the ones who were employed in the numerous retail parks that sprang up on those former industrial sites. It may have been their wives and children that were employed in these other jobs, usually on much lower wages, and with far less job security.
The same thing is being seen in the US. Thousands of US miners lost their jobs, partly because other fossil fuels took coal's place in energy production, partly because, in order to try to raise mining productivity and profits, increased mechanisation took place. Jobs were created in developing those new mining technologies, and also more than 3 million jobs exist in solar energy production alone. But, virtually none of the displaced miners will have found employment in these other spheres.
And, Marx makes the point that the higher productivity of the machines means that additional material is processed, which requires additional labour. But, if we take textiles, the fact that additional cotton growing labour is required, in the US, is of little benefit to displaced workers in Lancashire! And, even in this respect, the additional demand for cotton may simply encourage the development of technology such as the cotton gin, so that it does not result directly, in any growth of employment.
“It is possible for the hours of labour in the machine workshops to be lengthened for some time and that, in the first instance, not a man more may be employed in them. Raw material—cotton for example—can come from America and China and it makes no difference whatsoever to the Englishmen who have been thrown out of work, whether the demand for Negroes or coolies grows. But even assuming that the raw materials are supplied within the country, more women and children will be employed in agriculture, more horses etc., and perhaps more of one product and less of another will be produced. But there will be no demand for the dismissed workers, for in agriculture, too, the same process which creates a constant relative surplus population is taking place.” (p 557-8)
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