"F. George McDuffee" wrote in
message ...

The key question seems to be that if in our current
socio-economic environment, almost everything from social
status to material possessions depends on "work," what
happens when it "disappears," and how large of a fraction of
the population which is unemployed/dispossed can be
tolerated before gross instability occurs? Detroit,
Chicago, LA, and Philadelphia are the canaries in the coal
mine.

Governments can manipulate the demand that creates work, not only by
increasing bureaucracy, infrastructure or defense spending but also by
nationalizing farmland and creating collective farms, with incentives
to move there from cities. This doesn't have to be as brutal as the
Communist implementations we
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_P...Administration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_collapse