Evolution of the world of work

Last week the New York Times published an article by Ross Douthat entitled "The world of work". It is an interesting thesis, but what I found more compeling was a comment following the article that was brilliant in its simplicity. Posted by Douglas from Minneapolis it reads:

We have reached the point at which what most people do for a living is not truly necessary anymore. We've managed to continue by means of heavily marketing all of those unecessary goods and services to convince people to spend their excess purchasing power on them. When times are good that keeps purchasing power circulating. When times are bad though, the only things people truly need to buy are made and distributed by a tiny fraction of the workforce. The circulation becomes limited to those sectors of the economy.

A society that doesn't need workers requires an entirely new economic system - one for which there is no model in existence.
 

In six simple sentences this comment sums up a self-evident force of our economy that few often speak about, but it will remain an unavoidable truth until such time as we create new models on which to base our economy.