[jtolmar]

The amount of labor necessary to satisfy basic needs has went down significantly over the last hundred years, but the amount of labor needed to afford satisfying basic needs has not. A successful strategy for full automation would see work hours gradually reduce until they hit zero.

The reason this has happened is that we use an economic system where laborers are paid market rate and the owners are paid the rest. So when we automate something new, the market rate for labor stays the same (at best), but reduced costs mean there's a bigger chunk leftover for the owners. So business owners capture all the returns from automation. As long as this holds, you should expect increased automation to benefit whoever already owns the machines, not society at large.

And there are lots of possible solutions for this, some quite simple, but they're all considered socialism or communism, so when you start talking about them people assume you want Soviet Russia and stop listening.

[TaylorAlexander]

Agreed. But I believe worker ownership of the means of production can be achieved legally in our present system. A network of cooperatives could ethically support its members, and there would be no elite owners to suck up the wealth they generate.