Wealth is not a fixed sum. When a machine comes along and automates 50% of our labor, we (not we literally, but 'we' as a system) have two choices to make: 1) A

Wealth is not a fixed sum. When a machine comes along and automates 50% of our labor, we (not we literally, but 'we' as a system) have two choices to make: 1) Accept that our jobs are now 50% easier; or 2) find twice as much work to do. The latter is what seems to happen every time technology automates processes and procedures especially. Take email's replacement of the telephone, for instance. There are only so many calls you can place in a day, and therefore only so much value those calls can generate. But you can send hundreds of emails and accomplish much more work than you could with your phone -- and also generate lots more value. When capitalism is given the option to generate more value, capitalism tends to take that option. As productivity grows, we choose to reinvest that productivity gain in more work, resulting in more systemic wealth creation. This becomes a sort of treadmill, and damned if I know how we get off of it. When we routinize and automate something, we always seem to find a higher-order task to take on in its place. The result is that our world is wealthier than ever (in the economic sense of the word). The unfortunate side effect is that we seem to be working harder than ever. Tl;dr: Machines make our jobs easier, so we squeeze more work and more complex tasks into the vacuum created by the automation. This process repeats itself.