You make it sound so peaceful and orderly and yet it was quite the opposite. Mechanization allowed farms to become more productive with fewer workers and in pa

You make it sound so peaceful and orderly and yet it was quite the opposite. Mechanization allowed farms to become more productive with fewer workers and in part led to the industrial revolution by creating a large labour pool that could be exploited by other industries both by eliminating existing jobs as well as by increasing the population. That process resulted in a loss of livelihood for a large portion of the population. The transition was largely to other forms of manual labour, mostly in manufacturing. This didn't happen smoothly, a notable example being the Swing Riots[1] in Britain. To support your point, if we suffer a similar disruption in employment where the largest occupations start an irreversible downward trend, what sector is going to take up this burden? If you look at the statistics for the current largest employers[2] you'll see a list of jobs where automation has already made significant inroads. To name the three largest: * Retail salesperson * Cashiers * Food preparation and service workers I doubt that the other large employers on the list could absorb these workers. We just don't have that other large employer to take up the slack as when manufacturing absorbed and made use of former farm labourers. We also don't have the frontier of a new world to provide a second start for families seeking a better future. We've managed to paint ourselves into a corner with our current system and we can either sit here and suffer or bite the bullet and start over. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Riots [2] http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/area_emp_chart/area_emp_chart.htm http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/area_emp_chart/area_emp_chart...