I can see the author’s argument.
However, how do I buy this fantastic little machine that almost certainly will not simply be given to me when I don’t have the capital to buy it because my job has been eliminated.
Assuming unlimited resources and energy, there would be more than people could ever want. Think mining/terraforming other planets and fusion energy. Completely automated and giving anyone anything they demand.
Just like unlimited fruit growing and ready to be picked in the garden of eden.
The idea of “capital” is based on bidding/fighting over limited resources and labor. When it all becomes unlimited, there is no fight.
I think the “fantastic little machine” actually understates todays reality, in a certain way, if you’ll bear with me.
Look at the disappearance of CRT technology. People recognize it, if they’re old enough, but it’s hardly a celebrated revolution. Yet, the flat screen TV was a long sought after technological feat. It was strange to me how quickly it was accepted, when accomplished, as a matter of fact, and CRTs were simply viewed as dinosaurs, if the came to mind at all.
Of course, the internet and iPhone technology go far beyond this. And these themselves are ever evolving, so that we just drift from one future to the next, seemingly with never a thought, all the while dreaming of what we don’t have.
“O brave new world!”
If everything is cheap so it the fantastic little machine. It's just another thing.