>~50 years ago Keynes predicted by now no-one would have to work menial jobs because everything would be automated, freeing up people to work a few days a week and pursue creative endeavors.
Well that's not the outcome automation is having but quite the opposite. Automation means fewer jobs for some, meaning those left without those jobs have to compete for a brutal job market to make rent when unemployment runs out, it doesn't mean they get to prop their legs on the table and pursue arts and other hobbies.
The automation utopia where everyone is free from most work cannot and will not happen under the current economic model where all the benefits of automation are vacuumed by the private companies developing them and the governments have to deal with those left without a job and support them with taxes taken from those who still have a job.
Used to be that everyone worked brutal hours six days a week, even children. The working class wasn’t called that for nothing. All this work yielded a very meagre and fragile existence.
Now we have 40 hour 5 day weeks as standard - already a utopia compared to before automation started with the first industrial revolution. People are even talking about 32 hours. These tiny work hours buy us a king’s ransom of goods, and probably half of us are either retired or too young to work.
Added to this, we’re seeing the best job market in history.
If you can find the cloud inside this silver lining, your eyesight is to be applauded. Perhaps you had modern eye surgery giving you 20/20 vision.
Well that's not the outcome automation is having but quite the opposite. Automation means fewer jobs for some, meaning those left without those jobs have to compete for a brutal job market to make rent when unemployment runs out, it doesn't mean they get to prop their legs on the table and pursue arts and other hobbies.
The automation utopia where everyone is free from most work cannot and will not happen under the current economic model where all the benefits of automation are vacuumed by the private companies developing them and the governments have to deal with those left without a job and support them with taxes taken from those who still have a job.