Re: The question to be asked of all
@rexb:
Are you really suggesting that the pervasive computerization of the business world over the past century is just a multi-trillion dollar waste, and that computerized automation really isn't a labour-saving device after all?
In far too many cases, yes, pervasive computerisation has been a multi-trillion pound waste, and has been/still is a waste of labour. The labour savings from computerisation are frequently, greatly-more-than-cancelled by the labour expense of having to debug computer problems, to listen to Muzak while on hold for manufacturer's 'tech support', to have to try to communicate with someone having a very thick accent, over a super-crappy VOIP connection to a foreign call center, and of thousands of employees simply having to contort their personal workflows in a time/labour-wasting fashion, around the use of badly-designed, badly-implemented, corporate/government-mandated systems.
Or are you suggesting organizations can just spin up dozens of secretaries, call center operators, human computers, mailroom clerks, pneumatic tube mail systems, etc. to replace all their integrated IT systems?
If all those things have to be "spun up", then that business continuity plan has already failed. I've seen a major-chain retailer continue to do business, without mains power, out of a multi-thousand-square-foot store, using battery-powered printing calculators (which they borrowed out of their electronics departmental stocks), and I've seen a hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop convenience store closed down because their electronic point-of-sale quit working.