Will Automation Lead to Economic Collapse?

Probably not. These sorts of "fear the machines" articles are all basically the same, and usually ignore the part where innovation usually creates more jobs than it destroys.

<random thought> It does bring to mind one thing I kick around in my head sometimes: Fundamentally the economy is based on stuff: making stuff, and moving it around. It used to be about food, but that seems to be a special case of stuff, and it is doing just fine treated as such. Nowadays there is this talk of "service economy" but that seems to translate directly into "I'll push around stuff for you".

Is there an economy that is not based on stuff? It seems that we are approaching a point where stuff doesn't matter as much any more, and most everything tangible is a commodity. (pg does better at explaining that concept than i do in his "stuff" essay). Can we have an economy based on ideas or something (which could easily incorporate stuff as a subset, a la stuff and food)? </random thought>

The Roman economy was based on slavery, it collapsed when they ran out of slaves. When we get machines which are equivalent to human slaves, we'll still have rich people and politicians, and a large under class on social welfare. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I think we'll transition to more socialistic system when people begin to get desperate. It's that, or mayhem, and the people who aren't desperate are the very people who can buy reprieve from mayhem in the form of socialism. It'll be worth the cost.