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At the beginning of our country, nearly three quarters of our workforce was devoted to agriculture. Technology reduced the need for so many farmhands, as it became more mechanized and less labor intensive. New industries came along. Railroads, automobiles, computers, medicine.

I believe technological developments, and the corresponding increase of wealth that came with it, gave us the luxury of the welfare state. More opportunities will come along, and also will come the possibility of not having to produce a single thing. The challenge, for an economy, will be to engage the nonproductive elements. Anything that they can be induced to produce will be a positive. Don't look for the Democrats to champion this, however.

"The challenge, for an economy, will be to engage the nonproductive elements...

A post-industrial society is often defined as one in which the wealth created by services exceeds that created by manufacturing. Perhaps we are there already. The article suggests that in twenty years even the production of services, such as flying an airplane, may fall to automation which is bound to be cheaper and more reliable. Should we come to that, how will we define a non-productive person when so little production is required from anyone? It may be then that our role is largely to consume and a non-productive element is one who consumes insufficiently.

As you point out, the challenge will be to engage the non productive, or non-consuming elements, and insufficient consumption would not be a whimsical problem. One of the themes in 1984 is that war is necessary for the destruction of the produce of human labor. War certainly does that, and if history teaches us anything it emphasizes the dual nature our progress, moving partly toward the light and partly toward darkness, in almost equal measure. We alive today have both more material blessings and more terrible weapons than anyone in the past; why should we assume the future will be any different?

I suppose the important question is will automation change human nature if brought to the point where every want is fulfilled? Will our innate perversity lead us one way or the other? I think, or perhaps hope, that our spirit once released from toil of any labor will soar. Well, anyway, it's a nice Labor Day dream.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

-- William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium