>>71805
I wish I had screencapped my old responses.
First of all, automation is not saving labor, it's first and foremost increasing production. So it's not like there's a strict relationship between automation and loss of jobs. It's perfectly possible that a rise in automation would decrease the demand for leisure, and thus decrease voluntary unemployment. I'm pointing this out because the common description of what automation does is practically inviting this fallacy that it leads to joblessness.
This is one way to look at it. The other is a reductio ad absurdum. Imagine a world in which machines can do practically all labor, so that there is no need for those with machines to employ anyone. If you own such a machine, you can just sit back and have them build anything you want, perform any service you want, and so on. There will never be a situation in which you will be better off hiring anyone. From the perspective of the owners of the machines, everyone else might just as well not exist, except maybe as objects of charity.
However, what about the rest of the human race? As long as they have access to their own means of production, they will keep producing, and they will keep trading. It will be infinitely less productive than producing with machines, but still, they will be better off keeping their economy running than not doing so, so they will keep it running. They won't just lie down and die. They will simply do what they always did. From their perspective, the guys who do own machines simply dropped out of the economy. They might as well have transcended to another sphere of existence.
We only run into this horror scenario if those at the bottom have absolutely no access to any capital or land at all. But that's a different scenario, and I don't see how they are related.