[eli_gottlieb]

Technology has always reduced the total amount of work people need to do. That's why we now work 40-hour work-weeks in service outlets, factories, or offices instead of 100-hour work-weeks on farms.

The difference is that, once upon a time, we redefined "job" and "full-time" to balance between the economy's actual need for labor and humane living standards that allowed for active citizenship. We reduced the work-week and redefined a worker's life as involving more leisure, because our technology allowed us to do that.

These days, unemployment is high and labor participation is falling because technology has advanced, but we still expect the same work time. The result? A bifurcation of the labor market into a broad section of underemployed, unemployed, or just plain low-paid unskilled and semi-skilled workers, and a small cadre of overemployed professionals now working more than they ever previously did.

Stop trying to pretend the problem isn't there, and let's just fix it.