These sorts of activities, however necessary they may be for the reproduction of capitalist class relations, are always the last to be rationalized, that is, made more efficient, and less onerous, by means of labor-saving innovations. I have already discussed in detail the reasons for this. In some cases, the labor process itself is hard to reproduce mechanically. If you think robots have a hard time driving cars, imagine the calamities simple tasks like folding clothes or giving baths to the elderly would entail. But just as often, the pressure to automate activities is obviated by the sheer availability of human labor-power, which cheapens the cost of labor and therefore discourages business owners from investing capital in expensive machinery that often becomes obsolete well before it fully depreciates. An abundance of labor means a dearth of machines.