Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and you have no way of automating yourself because you don't know squat about programming. Automating existing work is more than just programming; a big part of it is expertise provided by people knowledgeable about the existing workflow. None of the projects I've been on that involved automating existing work involved only programmers and no one with experience doing the work.
Yes, I know, and I appreciated that fact in the post upthread. The point here is, if you go with the suggestion of 'redemeer that "if you get automated away, you get 0", said accountant will have no incentive to help with the automating, and every incentive to make it as hard as possible - which I think is not the result we want to have. To get a happy ending for everyone, we need coordination, not competition.
If you go with a principal that if you are involved in automating the job away, you get some reward, the accountant may have some incentive to help (especially if it is likely to happen, but with perhaps lesser quality -- but still perhaps a net cost savings to the company -- anyway, which would result not only in the company getting less than if the accountant was actively involved, but the accountant getting less as well.)