Yeah, I also misunderstood this at first. The article begins by _rebutting_ the claim that automation did not cause changes in the employment market that were disruptive and destabilizing.
The thesis seems to be that we should consult historians, not just economists, on this subject.
Modern economy theory is laughable when looked from a historical perspective. All modern economic theories look at society as in stable equilibrium, since they believe that prices tend to equilibrium by nature. Of course you just need to look at history to verify that such equilibrium is nothing more than momentary, the big economic changes really happening as the result of unexpected disruption, like world wars, "unpredictable" banking collapses, etc.
Yeah but you can't ask a historian why this is happening and thus you can't ask them what to do about it moving forward. A technologist on the other hand is able to advice on why it's happening and help outline potential solutions.
But it's details in general I agree that Economists are the least interesting people to ask.
The thesis seems to be that we should consult historians, not just economists, on this subject.