This has happened before. The Roman Empire had the same problem, although in their day it was not technology that made citizen labor too expensive to employ. It was slavery.

The Romans dealt with their problem by instituting a massive welfare system: bread and circuses–and a massive military to keep the human and material wealth flowing in from the Empire. This is the same way we’re dealing with the problem, and in the long run, it won’t work for us either.

The only way we can deal with this problem equitably and humanely is through the redistribution of wealth. Not surprisingly, the rich are not going to be too happy with this solution. They will point out that even if the tax on the wealthy were raised to 100%, there are so few of them that those revenues would still not be a drop in the bucket when it came to fulfilling the needs of the poor.

There may be a small nugget of truth in this, but I suspect it is mostly cloaked in a blanket of lies. After all, those same rich are always boasting that they are carrying the weight of the society on their shoulders, that they are paying all the taxes and doing all the work.

You can’t have it both ways, Daddy Warbucks.

We have all been here before. Fascism is the dictatorship of the middle class.

Artists create things we are all willing to pay for, but they are not exactly “productive” members of society, at least in the sense they create goods and services consumed by others (except in an abstract or conceptual way). If they all went on strike no one would starve. And what about teachers, sure, we all agree their work is important, but most of it is quickly forgotten by their students. The students, by the way, produce nothing until after they leave school.

Most scientists don’t produce anything of direct value–most research winds up in a journal somewhere and is never read, very little of it eventually gets incorporated into any useful product. Sure, some is earth-changing, but most is not even close. And soldiers, and cops, in spite of their value and upkeep, don’t really produce any goods or services either. Occasionally they earn their keep, but most of the time they are just training. Not everyone is a productive cog in the economy, and many of those who are are grossly overpaid because they have the political or economic power to define how much their labor is worth.

At every level of technology, we have more people than we have work for them to do, after all, isn’t that why we have technology, so we don’t have to work as hard? That’s the whole point of civilization, to free us from the grueling routine maintenance of sustaining life and give us the time to have fun. And by “fun”, I don’t necessarily mean hedonistic pleasure-seeking, I mean building cathedrals, composing symphonies, flying to other planets, writing poetry and doing particle physics. People are not naturally lazy, they love to work, on their hobbies and sports and businesses and careers. They can’t wait to leave the office and get home and work on that ’57 Chevy they’re restoring. Its only the work we do for other people, to make them rich from our labor, that is soulless and mind-killing. That’s why businessmen often have such contempt for working people, the boss gets paid for what he loves to do, his workers are there because they have no choice.

We have always had more people than we did jobs. Even hunter-gatherers took care of their kids and their old, and helped their sick
and crippled as best they could. Instead of distributing our excess wealth solely to those who own or manage or work in our society, a part of it should be made available to those we can no longer figure out how to employ, but who are willing to work. They will find something worthwhile to do. In fact, I’d be willing to bet many of them will use their wealth to create things the rest of us are willing to pay for.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. In fact, if you think about it, that is exactly what the human race has been doing
since it came down from the trees: producing excess wealth that can be diverted into investment, those unable to work, into labor specialization, and into art, science and culture. All human societies are capable of producing a surplus, at least most of the time.

Not everyone has to work, that is not some future dystopia, that’s the way its ALWAYS been. Its the way it SHOULD be. For centuries the working day and working week has been getting shorter, and productivity and the standard of living going up. That is no accident. That is the purpose of civilization, but that knowledge is hidden from us by those who’d rather tap into it for their own benefit.

The apocalypse you describe is not an inevitable result of human progress. It has been deliberately created and promoted by those who plan to profit from it. In my own life I’ve always noted the easier a job was, and the more fun it was, the better it paid. That is no accident, either.

In fact, that’s why the rich don’t want to subsidize the poor. They are afraid of the competition.