Over at VOX there is an interesting article on modern economics. The Sci Fi writer l.E. Modesit Jr identified this problem years ago.  He went so far as to call factories “formulators”  you put raw materials in one end and finished products come out the other end and few humans are required.  3d printing has made this possible today. If you have a consumer based economy this is really bad news.  It’s easy to blame outsourcing but the real problem is more likely automation and industrial robots.  There simply won’t be enough jobs to sustain a consumer based economy.  It takes far fewer people to build an automobile now and even customer service jobs are automated.  As a society we have to think about how to mitigate this change and I wish I had an answer but I don’t.  The above linked article does a good job of pointing out the problem but supplies no real solutions.

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