At the limit the capitalist drive to cut labor costs will result in a robot economy in which unions will have as little place as paid human labor. Maybe the unions should have read more Russell and less Marx. "In praise of idleness" would have been useful to change the world in a practical way. Trying to making enough jobs to keep all workers busy has led to planet plunder.
Automation and Robotics News http://blogs.evergreen.edu/arnews/ ************ Krugman near the edge. I can already hear conservatives shouting about the evils of “redistribution.” But what, exactly, would they propose instead? http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2013/06/paul-krugman-sympathy-for-the-luddites.html *********************** Le Monde basic income article. In 1968 Tobin, with Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith and 1,200 other economists, first called for a basic income... http://www.exacteditions.com/read/diplomatique/may-2013-35492/1/3/
Barry