A common sentiment but one rooted in a basic misconception about there being a maximum amount of work available to do. There's no such thing. The amount of undone work at any given time is effectively infinite. There are always jobs being left undone, always. Many of them.
That's especially obvious today when we have huge debts in terms of infrastructure building and city development. Or just general stewardship. There are so many waste disposal problems in the developed world that are currently in a holding pattern. For non-nuclear waste there are very clear routes toward remediation and disposal, for example. And yet all these projects languish on the back burner because we just can't afford them. Consider just one example, Seattle is currently in the process of installing sidewalks throughout the entire city, at present rates of progress it will take 1800 years to finish. Think about that for a moment and then consider that a lot of basic infrastructure and urban development projects in other cities are in similar shape.
And this doesn't even include new jobs that don't exist currently. In 1850 there were no movie stars, no TV advertising studios, no e-sports players, no vloggers, and there were vastly fewer and less well paid professional actors, musicians, and writers. Also, people in 1850 didn't have toilets, showers, dishwashers, refrigerators, televisions, instant pots, smartphones, or insulin. The amount of labor needed to supply the standard of living of 1850 in 2019 is vastly less than the labor that was used to supply it in 1850. The same trend will continue in the future. By 2050 the labor needed to supply a 2019 standard of living will be less than what was used in 2019. There will be jobs that don't exist today in 2050, and 2040, and 2030, and even 2020, that's how the economy works. That's been true throughout the entire holocene.
The problem is not fundamentally about the size of the well of labor to be done, that well is bottomless. The problem is rather one of economics and monetary systems. And this is not a new problem either. When wealth is hyper concentrated it actually reduces economic activity (which, remember, has nothing to do with money and everything to do with goods and services) because it shunts a huge percentage of the population out of active participation in the economy.
Imagine an alternate world with different money systems in circulation, for simplicity let's just imagine two sets: rich and poor people money. Imagine that it is illegal to trade one for the other (meaning you cannot use rich people money to buy up poor people money), imagine that you take all of the money as it exists today in the developed world and you label it "rich people money". Then, you introduce a new set of currency, the only thing special about it is that people in the top 1/4 by income (of rich people money) are legally prohibited from owning it or using it. Now you have this entire sub-economy of the bottom 3/4 who are isolated from the rest. Will people do jobs, provide services and make goods only for "poor people money"? Of course they will, because ultimately the money is just a medium for exchanging labor and value. People whose labor isn't valued in the rich people money economy will likely still be able to sell their work in the poor people money economy. And, as I said, there is an effectively infinite pool of work to be done so there will be jobs for people to do. Everyone in the developed world today has needs that aren't being met currently, all an economy is is a way for people to meet each others needs through labor via a medium of exchange.
Now, you can get to a state of having just one set of money and one whole economy where everyone is fully participatory but you need to bring up the wages and decrease the inequality in the system. If the wage floor in the US were closer to the $20/hr norm from the mid 20th century instead of the $7/hr it is today then there'd be a lot more money in the hands of those in the bottom 3/4 of the economy. And those people would be able to build their wealth, employ others, spend more money on more goods and services, etc. and result in a more fully participatory economy. We've spent the last nearly half century practically wrecking our own economic system, raiding it for the benefit of the hyper-elite. This is not a natural nor necessary development, it has been a choice. And we can just as easily choose other things to do.
I'm not sure how you missed the degree to which the automation of labor was implicit in my post, it's the foundation of it, in fact. Automation of labor isn't new, as I pointed out, it's not sudden, it's not unusual, it is the norm and always has been.
That's especially obvious today when we have huge debts in terms of infrastructure building and city development. Or just general stewardship. There are so many waste disposal problems in the developed world that are currently in a holding pattern. For non-nuclear waste there are very clear routes toward remediation and disposal, for example. And yet all these projects languish on the back burner because we just can't afford them. Consider just one example, Seattle is currently in the process of installing sidewalks throughout the entire city, at present rates of progress it will take 1800 years to finish. Think about that for a moment and then consider that a lot of basic infrastructure and urban development projects in other cities are in similar shape.
And this doesn't even include new jobs that don't exist currently. In 1850 there were no movie stars, no TV advertising studios, no e-sports players, no vloggers, and there were vastly fewer and less well paid professional actors, musicians, and writers. Also, people in 1850 didn't have toilets, showers, dishwashers, refrigerators, televisions, instant pots, smartphones, or insulin. The amount of labor needed to supply the standard of living of 1850 in 2019 is vastly less than the labor that was used to supply it in 1850. The same trend will continue in the future. By 2050 the labor needed to supply a 2019 standard of living will be less than what was used in 2019. There will be jobs that don't exist today in 2050, and 2040, and 2030, and even 2020, that's how the economy works. That's been true throughout the entire holocene.
The problem is not fundamentally about the size of the well of labor to be done, that well is bottomless. The problem is rather one of economics and monetary systems. And this is not a new problem either. When wealth is hyper concentrated it actually reduces economic activity (which, remember, has nothing to do with money and everything to do with goods and services) because it shunts a huge percentage of the population out of active participation in the economy.
Imagine an alternate world with different money systems in circulation, for simplicity let's just imagine two sets: rich and poor people money. Imagine that it is illegal to trade one for the other (meaning you cannot use rich people money to buy up poor people money), imagine that you take all of the money as it exists today in the developed world and you label it "rich people money". Then, you introduce a new set of currency, the only thing special about it is that people in the top 1/4 by income (of rich people money) are legally prohibited from owning it or using it. Now you have this entire sub-economy of the bottom 3/4 who are isolated from the rest. Will people do jobs, provide services and make goods only for "poor people money"? Of course they will, because ultimately the money is just a medium for exchanging labor and value. People whose labor isn't valued in the rich people money economy will likely still be able to sell their work in the poor people money economy. And, as I said, there is an effectively infinite pool of work to be done so there will be jobs for people to do. Everyone in the developed world today has needs that aren't being met currently, all an economy is is a way for people to meet each others needs through labor via a medium of exchange.
Now, you can get to a state of having just one set of money and one whole economy where everyone is fully participatory but you need to bring up the wages and decrease the inequality in the system. If the wage floor in the US were closer to the $20/hr norm from the mid 20th century instead of the $7/hr it is today then there'd be a lot more money in the hands of those in the bottom 3/4 of the economy. And those people would be able to build their wealth, employ others, spend more money on more goods and services, etc. and result in a more fully participatory economy. We've spent the last nearly half century practically wrecking our own economic system, raiding it for the benefit of the hyper-elite. This is not a natural nor necessary development, it has been a choice. And we can just as easily choose other things to do.