Earlier quoted context omitted.
Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. Even with AGI robot…
Yes it was political. But only possible by the shipping container which was a technology shift. It’s not purely that people shift to other jobs, it’s what jobs and where. A union manufacturing job and retail cashier job at dollar tree are not equivalent. And when the whole core of a company moves they aren’t replaced. The real number is work force participation. It’s down. Alot. Economic share of wages is down. Alot.
1. As you say, new jobs of what sort, with what labor power, and at what pay?
Offshoring manufacturing was as much about breaking US labor unions as anything else. No unions in China, and no bad press about feuding with US workers. Just 'oops, new economic reality, things change, so sorry'.
Making high value add jobs disappear and replacing them with only low value add jobs isn't a net gain.
2. What mechanism do people see realistically distributing hypothetical bountiful gains from AI-boosted productivity?
Let's imagine AI works out perfectly: productivity gains through the roof, entire industries automated, record corporate profits across the board.
What plausible path do people see from that (and the unemployment it spiked) to most people being given a chunk of the profits?
Remember: they're already legally spoken for by the shareholders.
Introducing new corporate tax rates at the federal level? Ha!
And even if UBI manages the get through in some form... how much do you think that will be?
Which is to say, how much of their wealth do you think the richest will be willing to part with to redistribute?
Because history says as little as they can get away with.