[jbooth]

Output is up, but employment is down in that same sector.

You know why? Robots.

Doesn't make the employment picture look any more rosy, in light of that increased output, does it?

Chomsky's pretty ideological and I'd always take him with a grain of salt, but the manufacturing output doesn't really rebut his main point about industrialists no longer needing workers as much as they used to.

[vijayr]

This book talks about the same thing - http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Work-Jeremy-Rifkin/dp/B000ILZ5...

output is consistently increasing, profits are consistently increasing - the only thing that is NOT increasing, is employment numbers. A big chunk of it is because of robots and automated systems.

huge population + huge unemployment = disaster

[agumonkey]

Isn't that the main topic ? As computer/robotics progress a vast span of jobs won't require humans. What will it means to exist in this future ? Will it be abundance and free creative life ? Can humans lead a good life without having ( a strong necessity) to work ?