We are increasingly moving towards a world where large segments of the population are unemployable. The world of the future will be a small population of highly educated stewards, enjoying a leisured lifestyle, who clock in to "work" periodically only to ensure the machines are running smoothly. There will be no place for today's countless billions of illiterate and unskilled peasants.
Getting there from here will not be pretty but it's going to happen.
That has been claimed for a long time now, but hasn’t happened.
Perhaps it could happen, but I don’t see that it needs to happen.
It could happen with welfare, where people choose welfare over low paying jobs. It could happen with taxes on employers (social security, Obamacare, etc.) which discourage employment. It could happen with unions, who threaten disruptive strikes, and make labor more expensive. It can happen with minimum wage legislation outlawing low paying jobs, the first rungs of the ladder of success. Yes, there are many ways we can, and do, shoot ourselves in the foot. But that is not the same as inevitable.
The historical trend has been for shorter work weeks and greater prosperity in the West. The engine is greater productivity. There is no reason why this trend should stop. The rest of the world can join us in shorter work weeks and greater prosperity also.
Before saying this is just pie the sky nonsense, appreciate that this has been the trend for 500 years of so.