Increasing automation lowered the cost to produce goods. The people who owned the machines (capital) could have lowered prices, but they didn't. They used the lower wage cost to increase their own profits, then used those profits to buy more machines (increasing their capital).

Now we have a small number of people who own a large amount of capital, raising prices on everything to keep increasing their profits, and refusing to help the people who used to do the now automated work, or raise wages for the existing workers. The shareholders don't care about working conditions or product quality, they only care about getting a bigger return on investment (by a bigger margin) than the previous year.

"Sustainable growth" (actually exponential growth) is literally impossible to sustain, yet almost every major company's shareholders demand it. What happens when your economy is reliant on the impossible?