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I agree with you that the potential of automation to lead to massive job reduction over the next few decades is something worth careful consideration.

Assuming that the number of jobs replaced by automation far outnumber those that are created, there will be a large pool of otherwise employable adults with nothing they have to do.

Liberals have suggested a base stipend that each person receives just for breathing. Those liberals that are a little more enlightened will allow certain individuals that actually work to make more, but of course those individuals and/or the companies they work for will have to be taxed substantially to provide money for the stipends.

But how are the stipends determined? Will citizens of some countries get larger stipends than those in others? Will citizens with children get an equal stipend for each child? Will two married adults living in the same house get less than two single adults living separately? So even if we agree with the stipend idea in theory, the actual working out of it in practice could be rather complicated and controversial.

What about the economics? It seems as if this will necessarily lead to some form of massive state control. If the state is providing the stipends and the state is collecting the taxes to fund the stipends then even if the state allows corporations to innovate as they please, the state will have interposed itself into virtually every financial transaction. Slight changes in the stipends or taxes could lead to wild swings in inflation and deflation. This could get real ugly since politicians rather than economists or corporate execs will have the ultimate say in these financial decisions.

So most everyone will be able to do whatever they wish. Millions will try and become rock stars, world famous artists, actors, celebrity chefs, etc. There will be a vast oversupply of people doing things because they are fun rather than useful. Most of the people who go into those "fun" fields will fail, and fail miserably. I hope they develop and deploy a sufficient number of autonomous psychologists to mop up the shattered dreams of millions of wannabes.

And what about all the people on permanent vacation? How many people can fit in Yosemite on a single day? Or the Grand Canyon? The Appalachian Trail will trade places with the Los Angeles Freeway system in terms of man-miles traveled per day. Bored people tend to become restless.

The only thing I know for sure is that the Neocons will be in favor of makework projects. They will be OK with a system that appears to be like the current system. So people will get to do work that is truly useless, but be lied to by their countries and corporations and led to believe it is vital and cannot be done by robots.

If I am going to live a useless existence I would rather be left to my own devices, but Neocons will know what's best for me and have me digging and filling holes on a daily basis so I won't be roaming about getting into trouble and taking away their preferred tee times.

[...] the state will have interposed itself into virtually every financial transaction.

Whew! Sure am glad that that hasn't happened yet! /s

Regards,

I agree. You bring up some points I hadn’t really considered.

The problem is that make-work won’t work. People have a nose for that. They’ll know they’re being lied to.

I suppose there is some libertarian approach to sharing the wealth that doesn’t involved massive government intrusion, but darn if I know what it would be.