Walter Russell Mead outlines two possible futures for middle-class Americans: one where most of us lose “the race against the machine,”the other where smart government policies enable an eventual successful transition to an economy where IT and robots do a shockingly large percentage of the jobs humans do today — but the carbon-based life forms still have plenty of meaningful work to do.

 

Mead calls that first scenario, “Bladerunner with food stamps.” Mead:

It’s likely that an information age welfare state would consist of two components: straight out welfare and “social inclusion” payments for some, subsidized make-work jobs (like Postal Service employment in an age of email) for others.