What this comes down to is that (most) people will fairly soon be irrelevant to the production of good and services. This is the logical result of the productivity curve, in which more goods and services are constantly being produced with less and less human input.
Pretty obviously at some point a LOT of “stuff” will be produced with very little human effort.
IOW, the market economy, based on the efficient allocation of scarce resources, is in the process of eating itself by eliminating scarcity.
One consequence may very well be the expansion of the state to reallocate resources to those who quite simply have no economic demand for any services they’re incapable of providing.
I’m curious if anybody has alternative libertarian ideas for organizing an economy where a smaller and smaller percentage of the people actually contribute.
It’ll be deflationary because the pool of available buyers shrinks substantially due to the effects of robotics upon availability of gainful employment.
My own preference (not as a one size fits all) is to allow a Distributist system for those who have an interest -- small areas of land that people would own and work. It would provide self-sufficiency, personal responsibility, production of food and goods for local markets. It might not be "necessary" because the robots could do so much of it cheaper -- but it might be "beneficial" to have people make a contribution to their lives and to society.
I also support smaller political areas -- I prefer City States over large impersonal constructs like "California". A lot of people in California (or Pennsylvannia, or New York) are not Liberal at all -- but who care?? The big urban centers determine the State laws, and everyone else is stuck with it! I'd like to see cities have to stand on their own (urban farming, neighborhood policing, etc) and if their Liberal policies "work", that's fine -- but if their Liberal policies are utterly "unsustainable" then they ought to find a better way.
But if we don't actively forge a new path, we could slip into a communist world where there is "no money" and the robots do the work, and the people sit at home waiting for EBT cards and dream about burning everything down. That just isn't good -- but it's the world that might be born.