The real problem with the economy is that it doesn't need you anymore

I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but the rest of the comment looks serious. Here's the standard answer:

As long as any human needs or wants are unfilled, there's a capacity for an unlimited amount of work and labor. As robotics gets less expensive, it will progressively replace unskilled, repeatable, monotonous labor.

As of yet, we're nowhere near having quality enough robotics to do abstract, creative work. Thus, more (human) work will become abstract and creative. The more mechanical, automatic, less skilled work will gradually become streamlined, mechanized, and replaced as that becomes safer and more efficient than paying people to do that kind of work.

> Labor is the only good most people have, and it's worth is declining.

Completely unskilled labor - working at Taco Bell, pressing a button every 17 seconds, unloading crates from a truck - the worth of those is declining. Skilled labor - including servicing robotics or operating a complex crane - the worth of those is slightly increasing. Knowledge work - research, biochemistry, computer programming, genetics, engineering - the worth of those is greatly increasing.

There has been and will continue to be a general shift from completely unskilled labor to skilled labor, and skilled labor to knowledge work.

> The previous generation could maintain the same lifestyle, doing less work. For years the rich are getting richer and the poor get poorer, but the last years the middle class is shifting to poor as well.

This is patently false. The average person today has twice as many possessions as the person of forty years ago. The resources, necessities, and luxuries available to people has greatly increased on the low end and slightly increased on the high end. Look at technology - what do wealthy people use online? Google for search, Gmail for email, Facebook for networking, Amazon for books, Ebay for auctions. Those are all available to anyone of any social class in the developed world. Think about computers in general - you can get a totally functional computer for web browsing and word processing for dirt cheap, almost free. This is an incredible thing. You can get a Personal Transportation Device (aka a "car") for very cheap! My 1995 Infiniti J30 was $1900, and that was a luxury car 15 years ago. It still totally gets the job done. Even the poorest people in America can buy a nice enough car, outright, in cash, for less than a month's work in a bad job.

That's amazingly marvelous. The quality of life gap is closing tremendously. The difference in goods, services, availability, and access is getting closer all the time. The wealthier are getting slightly wealthier because it's possible to leverage your good works to more people to help the world. The poor and middle class are getting much wealthier because they can transact with the people doing the best job globally at everything. Google is the best in the business, and it's available to everyone that can get online.

> The more "intangible" sorts of work are only getting paid, after the basics needs are paid, and thanks to the internet people are sharing those skills for free.

Actually, that's a good point that people are grappling with. How can we convert our skills that other people want to money? I don't have the answers on that, but I'd feel confident wagering a lot of money that there's where there's going to be a lot of growth in those areas. Creative people will find creative solutions to monetizing their work.

We're going to be seeing more writers, artists, programmers, researchers, designers (yes, the demise of design has been greatly exaggerated), and so on. Short of a brutal WWIII, I feel pretty good that my children are going to live in a much more pleasant, clean, stimulating, enjoyable world, with meaningful and interesting work to do, inexpensive necessities, and ever improving design, experience, and aesthetics of the everyday world.

Ever lived in the third world? You don't have washing machines, you get your clothes washed down the street. In the first world, you just chuck them in your washer/dryer, push a few buttons, wait an hour.

See the difference we're talking here?

One way requires someone to swoosh clothes around with a stick all day. The other requires a designer, a few supervisors at the factory, an assembly line, and a washing machine repairman, all of whom ADDED TOGETHER still don't work as many hours per washed knicker as the laundry people do in the third world.

Of course we'll still be dependent on others. Do you think the average schlub will be designing his own printer templates? Nah, he'll download them from the Internet like everyone else.