[gutnor]

Well that's the transition period still. Either you own your share of means of production that sustains you or you don't and you starve to death because there is literally nothing you can do.

I enjoy a good distopian novel as the next man, but it would take a really unlikely set of circumstances so that technology has improved enough to enslave the population durably, yet not enough so that this enslaved population still has some use and, added to that, a ruling class or at least a culture motivated enough to maintain that kind of status quo.