Post-labour economy

An economy in which paid work is no longer the main way people earn income, status and a claim on public resources, because automation performs much of it.

Keynes speculated in 1930 that his grandchildren's generation might work fifteen hours a week. Today's debate turns on how many tasks AI can perform and how fast. Frey and Osborne (2013, published 2017) estimated a large share of US jobs at high risk of automation; a task-based OECD analysis by Arntz, Gregory and Zierahn (2016) found a much smaller share.

• Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend shares resource income with residents.
• Finland's 2017–2018 basic income experiment tested unconditional payments.
• Proposals for AI dividends and public capital funds remain proposals.

Past waves of automation created new jobs as well as destroying old ones, and forecasts of mass technological unemployment have repeatedly failed. Critics also argue that work provides meaning and social ties that cash cannot replace.

No economy is post-labour today. Statements about its arrival are forecasts and are marked as such, with a horizon so they can be checked later.