We're clearly already in a transitional time where our society produces much more wealth than we need - so much so that we have to artificially increase consump

We're clearly already in a transitional time where our society produces much more wealth than we need - so much so that we have to artificially increase consumption in order to keep the gears of capitalism turning. There are people who are already advocating for a "guaranteed minimum income" - part of the idea is that if it wasn't so painful to be unemployed, then people would be less likely to oppose automating jobs away. The post that introduced me to the concept is this one: http://itself.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/from-the-generalized-resource-curse-to-communism/ http://itself.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/from-the-generalized-... . It's a little bit ranty, and I'm not sure it's the best introduction, so if anyone has a better link I'd love to read it.