That's only because of the welfare system. Otherwise there is no harm to others because a person with unskilled labour gets paid less over time (they're coming to America and Europe because the wages are better). And it is still probably better for that person than staying in their previous country.

If there's literally no work to do, you can meet the material demands of the problem by turning more machines on.

(meanwhile lots of the US runs on cheap labor)

There is work to do, though. Doctors, lawyers, engineering, etc. Lots of work for skilled labor. You can't just "turn on more machines" to placate unemployed unskilled labor.

What if the majority of people can't afford doctors or lawyers?

Then many of the doctors/lawyers burdened with extreme student debt and unable to find work will put pressure on the insurance companies and ultimately charge lower prices. That's likely decades out though.

The machines have owners. How do you make them give away whatever they produce?

They may have to. If there is no money to buy these things, then they'll be back living at home, too.

Don't be naive. Governments and corporations will just devise laws that you HAVE TO buy these goods. How do you muster the money is, and always will be, your problem.

They'll find a way to make money, don't you worry about that at all. They'll sooner make you owe money by the mere fact you're born than to give up.

through legislation, i.e. the recent push toward universal basic income.

personally i think in today's world in which 0.1% owns pretty much everything or at least controls ownership of everything, it's an unavoidable eventuality, but it's not going to be an easy process of getting there.

Sorry, but I am not sure I understand. Automation is in things like factories, back offices.. Those things are not entirely unskilled. While you still have plenty of unskilled labour jobs in services/food/entertainment and they haven't yet invented robots to pick strawberries - which in the UK is something we use season immigrants for.

In a bizarre recent trend, people are starting to call anyone without college education 'unskilled'. A decent toolroom machinist required more training and did more mentally challenging work than many office workers with 'soft' college degrees.

These are indeed the kind of jobs that were lost to automation. Truly unskilled labor was replaced not by robots but by cheaper unskilled labor of other people.

There is potentially giant market for unskilled labour. From an economic perspective it makes no sense to have an engineer clean his own toilet, wash his own windows or cook her own dinner.

That does require us to overhaul the tax system so that income isn't taxed twice when it is paid directly from one person to another.

This will become a global problem about as quickly as it becomes a national problem.

Immigrants, boomers and technology are convenient scapegoats for declining wealth. Technology is particularly favored in the media because it sounds vaguely plausible if you don't look too closely and being anti-technology makes you look ridiculous.

The 0.1% and their media naturally aren't going to blame themselves, or their trade agreements, or their lobbyists, or their wall street.

I wonder what the math is on the 0.1%'s money. If the 0.1% became significantly more generous with their money, how much would that actually benefit everyone else?

When that article laid out that it was talking about a survey I sat down and thought about what kind of distribution there likely is. My first guess was:

  f(x) = 500 / (1-x)

where x is 0..1 (excl. 1), 0 being the poorest person and the one right before 1 the richest.

This yields 88.8% being owned by the richest 20% when using 1mio slices (the only reason I'm not trying to integrate symbolically is that I'm too lazy to try to revive my college math skills).

This is strikingly close to the 84% that the article claims is reality.

So, what's wrong with this then now?

The journalist writes that it "should" be different but doesn't provide for an explanation that says why the distribution should be following a different mathematical formula (and which).

Who is being stupid here, me or the journalist?

>So, what's wrong with this then now?

If you think that having wealth should be rewarded more than creating wealth then nothing I guess.

Geometrically increasing wealth is caused by the "compound interest effect" where wealth begets wealth.

In other words, it's a signal that creating wealth is steadily diminishing in importance while owning it is increasing in importance.

Thanks for your reply. You're giving me some food for thought.

To be clear, I'm poor, i.e. I've failed both at wealth creation and ownership so far. I'll think about how (much) wealth creation can 'distort' the geometric formula.