As productivity increases, as more work is able to be accomplished through automated processes, we seem to be finding less need for "workers".
We may find that 25% unemployment is normal. We have plenty of "stuff", and we get by with the productive labor of much fewer people. That will fundamentally change society.
Yes it will. America will be just like Zimbabwe. But it will be really nice for the handful of folks who control everything.
Until the mobs come for them, that is.
Not at all. We find less need for low-skilled workers. There is a huge shortage of workers -— highly skilled ones -— in the U.S. It is somewhat filled by H1B program, but that is a drop in the bucket.
This is exactly the discussion I’ve been trying to have with people as well. Same issue is what caused the “family farm” to struggle in the 80’s hard to compete with automated GPS controlled machines working on thousands of acres when your using manual machines on hundreds of acres.
The basis of patent timing was original based on the premise that it took approximately 17 years to train an apprentice and therefore the apprentice would be one of the first after the initial inventor to be able to utilize a new technology-giving the inventor productivity advantages over competitors during that time period, but no over the new apprentice beyond that period.
This is why inflation is such a double hazard - we should through technology be seeing production deflation by definition through efficiency. Instead we not only see a maintenance in price, but an increase.