is it something beyond ‘Bread and Circuses’? Bread and Circuses was a distraction from the problems, perhaps we have the technology to solve the problems, what does that mean for the people that are not engineers or programmers. Do we invent jobs for them to do? I’m reminded of Vonnegut’s Player Piano. I don’t know the answer but I do know we have constantly gathered more food out of less space, more power out of less fuel. Soon we will reach a point where the ease of gathering these makes most of the population’s labor irrelevant. How do we handle that in the crazy near future?
We already do this. Its not the future. The government, via debt and fiat currency, basically redistribute from producers to a large and growing underclass. Technological advancement and Productivity have grown greatly in the last 3 decades, but average real wages have not budged Where has all that extra productivity gone? I would say most has been sucked up in the maw of government inefficiency and corruption.
What will more of such redistribution result in? Even more income inequality, and a growing underclass - not only economic, but social and moral as well.
Also, who is to say the owners of all this expensive capital supporting a free-loading American citizenry of the future will want to keep this capital and investment in the USA in the face of a huge and rapacious government spurred on by a mob electorate looking for a hand-out?