That sounds nice, but I don't think it's true, especially not in the near future. We're already in a state where society could go on with say 30% of the populat

That sounds nice, but I don't think it's true, especially not in the near future. We're already in a state where society could go on with say 30% of the population working to produce food, but we keep growing, because as a society we want more. Who would give up what they have right now to go back and live as a billionaire in the 1500s, giving up their iPads and TVs and modern medicine? Not many people. I don't see that trend reversing. How many times has cost been the determining factor on whether to purchase or do something? Probably a lot. With trade, there's always relative competitive advantage. It's probably economically more sensible for you the software developer to hire someone to mow your lawn, since you make more money in an hour of writing software than it costs to get someone to mow your lawn. Even if you're better at mowing your lawn than the person you hire - you still make more money writing software (example: You make $100/hour writing software. It takes you 1 hour to mow your lawn, or you can hire someone for 2 hours to do it for you at $20/hour. Opportunity cost to mow the lawn: $200. Gain from hiring someone to mow the lawn: $160. So even though you can mow the lawn twice as fast as the person you hire can, it's still better to hire someone.) So now it becomes a resourcing problem - you need people who can mow your lawn. Robots can do that, but I don't think that robots can do all jobs at least not in the near future. Which is why I think that a huge part of this is a resourcing problem - you have a mismatch between skills and demand, which again I think is solved through education. Consider software developers again - I bet that if suddenly there was no demand for software developers, any one of us could be successful in another career, since at the heart of it, we're logical thinkers. We need to get as many people to that level as possible. Furthermore, it's very important to not make poverty generational. I think that I contribute to society through my employment (at least I pay a ton of taxes), but if I wasn't as lucky as I was, I might not be in the same position to do so. I'd still be as capable, at least in terms of potential, but I wouldn't have the opportunity.