Is Technological Unemployment Real? An Assessment and a Plea for Abundance Economics

Abstract

In our increasingly automated economy, technology has replaced much of the need for non-elective human labor: in others words, we increasingly face a situation of technological unemployment. Thus automation is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, technological unemployment worsens income inequality and wealth disparity. On the other hand, there are purported gains in productivity and economic growth. I posit Abundance Economics as a new theory of economics that addresses this problematic disparity in two phases. First, in the automation economy phase, there would be an alleviation of material-goods scarcity for human survival, and second, in the actualization economy phase, there would be a focus on social goods for greater human thriving.