There is an interesting phenomenon on its way which we do not fully understand yet. It's the computer revolution. Now many observer believe that the second machine age is like the first, that technology has always been seen as a threat but in hindsight created more work and welfare. I do not buy that for a number of reasons.
First, the simple stat is flawed. Yes, more people work and there is more welfare, but there are also many more people living on earth compared with the middle ages. We do not have precise observations, but it is not unlikely that the majority of the people before the industrial revolution were all working full time, regardless of age and sex. So the machines may have enhanced the labour force, and freed up time for leisure for most, but some are unlucky not to have the skills that suit a machine. In order to let them accept the introduction of technology, we should therefore always distribute welfare, also to those who have made room for progress.
Second, in this machine age, I believe we are heading towards a point were the very human aspect of labour, not its force, but its knowledge, is being substituted by computers. That is very different, because it excludes complementarity of capital and labour to a much larger extent. For now, this leads to job polarization, but soon software may take over more advanced tasks which have now fairly big gains, and robots might take over many service jobs that require a 'human touch'.
Third, the apologists say fear is not needed as the past predicts the future and we've sorted it out last time. I believe that is the wrong motivation. Fear is not needed, indeed, but not because nothing is going to change, but because it is possible to see a change for the better. Why, after all, would we want to work? We don't, that's why we ask a wage in return for the trade of leisure. For those who think this will lead to a demographic boom, maybe not: if we spend more time caring about individuals, we have a new constraint other than the price of education: the time which we cannot multiply. Also, procreation brings responsabilities, which we may want to keep under control.
Fourth, I tend to agree with Paul Mason that there will be a change of system. The steam machine introduced capitalism. After all, those machine are capital that allows the making of profits, of which part goes to the worker and the rest to the shareholder. The new technology works autonomous, which will actually take away profit. We tend to think of companies that adopt technology as labour-killers, but what they really are is profit-killers. The beauty of capitalism is that companies will always want to be the first to go on that road, because then profits actually increase. As soon as one more company follows, we have Bertrand competition that drives prices to zero, because software (the new capital) produces its goods and services at zero marginal costs. I thought of this a while back, and others have without a doubt too, but Paul Mason found a really interesting note of Karl Marx who predicted exactly this, and it is entirely in line with marxist economics. If labour becomes obsolete, there is no more income and no more turnover. So it is a system changer. Now before we yahoo about this, nobody knows what the new system will be. It is possible that we distribute according to needs, or based on a basic income scheme equally for all. It is also possible that capital holders will manage to protect intellectual right on software and intangible products (like a song or a movie), and have ordinary people sweat to obtain it without actually contributing much to society. Amongst capitalists, there will then be a fair amount of trade, owning brands and intellectual rights, and forming cartels much like today, while those who were former workers will then be slaves. Personally I think the latter scenario is most likely, even if it relies on reducing democracy. It is probably even already ongoing.
So in sum, there will be a change and it could be for the better or worse, depending on whether you catalogue more equality as the former or the latter. It certainly deserves a debate.
