I don't disagree, but this brings up lots of issues. If there are less workers, and population continues to increase, who buys these products, and with money made doing what? What do all of the ‘workers’ who aren't needed do with their time? Do they become a permanent welfare class? What does that do to societal structure?
Do we become more of a ‘part-time’ working culture, in which less jobs are shared by more people? How does that work, and who pays for their benefits? Yes, having automation might make products cheaper to manufacture, and thus more competitive - leading to greater profits and money available for wages. However, if fewer people are working and thus taxes go up to provide for them, wouldn't that just eradicate whatever savings there were from reduced labor costs?
It's obviously complicated, but eventually we will have to answer these questions.
All good questions.
Let me take a step back and highlight part of the problem. The article that was posted was a Labor Day piece, about American workers.
Freepers have turned it into a "I love old cars!" thread.
The problem is that labor is losing its value -- automation does some of it, foreign workers do some of it. Standard of living is going down in this country. We are absolutely going in the direction of people who do no work at all, and people who have a part-time job. The number of people with solid careers demanding lots of time and effort is shrinking. In a society in which personal productivity seems to have no reason to increase, we seem likely to become a society in which fewer and fewer people can really support themselves. Voila! Government checks! EBT cards! Government healthcare! Government schools! It's a socialist's dream, because labor is no longer necessary, and everyone has (at best) a part-time job at McDonald's! Now we really need a strong central government redistributing all the wealth! Yee-Haaa!
But, we might as well turn it into a "I love old cars!" thread. I guess that's less depressing.