If for each two jobs automation removes, it creates one new job. The one new job pays less than two previous jobs. This changes the balance between capital and work. Workers share from production has been in steady decline in all OECD countries over two decades.
To achieve the goal of working less, you need to own capital. Technology changes the capital vs. work equation towards capital at the same time when there is increasing global supply of educated workforce. It's just supply and demand. Workers are simply competing towards bottom.
To get to position where you need to work less you would need to have:
> If for each two jobs automation removes, it creates one new job.
Why do you think it's as many as 1:2?
That sounds like a lot of new jobs to me; How many travel agents did hipmunk and expedia et all shut down vs. how many employees that they have? One robot maker and a couple of robot service-people can make and maintain enough robots to remove a hundred jobs. Or maybe a thousand. I don't know, and I don't pretend to.
The result of growing inequity is that too much work remains undone, too few opportunities exploited.
Big money requires big investments for the big returns. Big funds cannot consider many worthwhile investments, due to transaction costs, the (relatively) lower expected ROI.
If the money keeps moving (the velocity of money) through progressive taxation (decreasing inequity), then more people will have access to more capital.
One reason I keep reading pg and HN (and watching crowd sourced funding) is because I'm fascinated by the effort to reduce transaction costs. I'd prefer progressive taxation. But this seems to be working too.
Even if we had a healthy market, which we don't, the people who lost their jobs don't have "marginally less" income. They have zero income. They are not happy.
To achieve the goal of working less, you need to own capital. Technology changes the capital vs. work equation towards capital at the same time when there is increasing global supply of educated workforce. It's just supply and demand. Workers are simply competing towards bottom.
To get to position where you need to work less you would need to have:
1. Change taxation from work to capital.
2. Basic income.