I think you are right that "automation is the ultimate triumph of capital over labour," but I'd really like to point out that knowledge capital is a huge part of this. Having an employable skill these days is becoming more and more synonymous with having some sort of knowledge capital, because essentially everything that doesn't require knowledge capital can be automated away.

>Americans in "flyover country" are increasingly unemployed, filing for disability, and dying of opioid overdoses.

That's not true in general, and it implies that states like California don't face these same issues. If you look at the unemployment rate of states, the 25 states with the lowest unemployment rates are all "flyover country." [1]

I think the root of these problems are caused by structural unemployment. Living in a flyover state is a great predictor of these problems, but it is not the cause.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/200017/state-unemploymen...