I'm not saying that having wealthy owners who no longer produce for mass consumption and a much larger number of dispossessed people with nothing to offer for m

I'm not saying that having wealthy owners who no longer produce for mass consumption and a much larger number of dispossessed people with nothing to offer for market exchange is a good situation. I'm saying that there are tendencies that could drive things in that direction if extreme automation is possible and market logic endures without further modifications. In the 19th and 20th centuries, both Marxists and their rivals believed that a large work force was a crucial part of industrial production. They just differed on social/political arrangements around that necessary labor. In the long run, the feud between Marxists and capitalists may seem as quaintly parochial as the conflict between 17th century Catholics and Protestants seems to an agnostic 21st century European. What need have we of a doctrine of factory workers when nobody needs factory workers at all?