Pretty much my point. Though there still has to be some kind of a mechanism by which people initially acquire the equipment you mention.
This is, BTW, pretty much the world of Star Trek. They have more or less gotten beyond the need for money. Which makes sense, when you think about it. Money is a medium of exchange. What do you need a medium of exchange for if everybody already has everything?
The Eloi weren't entirely a positive role model, you know. :)
More importantly, we've been running experiments for 50 years now on taking large numbers of people, removing them from productive economic activity but maintaining them at what is by historical standards quite a comfortable standard of living. Indian reservations, British slums, American ghettoes, etc.
Do conditions in these areas seem very Eloi-like to you? Or are they harsh, brutal and cruel? Do the inhabitants devote their lives to creating beauty and music, for which the indisputably have the necessary leisure? Or to crime and predation, mostly on each other?
BTW, the girls in England victimized by Muslim gangs come from exactly this background, in which quite possibly nobody in the family has held a job, except perhaps briefly, in two generations.
IOW, freedom from a JOB does not appear to be an unmixed blessing.
Recently saw a Quebecois movie, Seducing Doctor Lewis, about a tiny fishing village that couldn't fish anymore. They were all getting what was basically welfare, so they were okay economically. But they wanted JOBS. To get a factory they had to recruit a doctor. The story is about their deception of him.
Does a surprisingly good job of demonstrating why a welfare check is no replacement for a JOB.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366532/
IMHO, it comes down to this.
You either have “Faith” in your fellow man, or you put your Faith in Government.
Liberals put their faith in Government.
Conservatives, in their fellow man.
Liberals don’t trust people because they don’t trust themselves. They NEED authority.
Conservatives, on the other hand, have a foundation for determining “right from wrong”.
Conservatives have confidence.
Liberals embrace uncertainty.
I know it! I used to teach Catechism, and one of my young lads asked me, in all seriousness, why he would want to sit on a cloud all day plying a harp; wouldn't that be eternal boredom? He had a good point!
But really, think about it; what IS a job, and what does it say about our very existance?
IMNSHO it is a substitute for our previous role of hunter/gatherer. In the wild, we survived by finding and killing and foraging for our food. We built shelters or occupied natural ones such as caves where we could. We used our big, wonderful but costly brains--in terms of calories needed--to figure out how to do such things better than any other animal on the planet.
When we were not preoccupied with food or shelter, etc., we told stories, created art and fought each other. We were good at all those things. Unfortunately or fortunately, as the case may be, we didn't have a lot of time after food, shelter and safety.
Then we learned agriculture and built town and cities to live in. The majority of people in this situation were busy planting, rearing, butchering, harvesting, herding--and the JOB became born. A small number, who were smarter or more skilled, got out of THAT type of work by becoming skilled in a particular craft or used their social skills to get things from the workers. I'm not condemning these people--their leadership and insight often succeeded and kept the people of the town alive through droughts, floods, wars, etc. But they didn't labor in the fields or pastures, nor in the copper smelters and jug factories. No, they became the aristocracy.
Now we are also a an animal with a brain that has a desire to worship or feel spirituality, which I believe is set by God (let Us make man on Our image), so another group arose to service that, the priestly caste. Again, no condemnation, because often they brought us closer to God. (BTW I am a believer in Science and God)...
The industrial revolution led to the craftsman class becoming the aristocracy of modern times, thru the marketplace, which was its own craft, really. Think of the guy with a leather apron making a bronze knife now being a factory head or CEO and the herdsman now stamping out gizmos in the CEO's factory.
So what does the future hold for us? I contend a much bigger revolution than that of the industrial revolution. This one will be as big as changing from our tens of thousands of years existence as hunter/gatherers to farmers and herders. We can, ideally, pursue love and life, where ever it leads us, or simply laze around on an endless summer day. I also told the young boy that some people would LOVE to sit on a cloud and play the harp all day!