Children don't do anything useful. Neither do the elderly, or the sick. Retired people produce little or nothing of value. The idle rich are, well, idle. For centuries we relegated to women what we considered routine tasks, like child rearing or house keeping. We know today what great value they contribute, but for centuries it was disdained and ignored. And even the majority of those who do work don't actually produce anything on the job, they have administrative or management jobs, they are executives or accountants, marketers. These are middlemen, maintenance people who keep the machinery running, they don't actually operate the machinery. I'm not saying these people are worthless, its just that a system as complex as our economy spends an enormous amount of energy on overhead, monitoring and self-regulation, not production.

Artists create things we are all willing to pay for, but they are not exactly "productive" members of society, at least in the sense they create goods and services consumed by others (except in an abstract or conceptual way). If they all went on strike no one would starve. And what about teachers, sure, we all agree their work is important, but most of it is quickly forgotten by their students. The students, by the way, produce nothing until after they leave school.

Most scientists don't produce anything of direct value--most research winds up in a journal somewhere and is never read, very little of it eventually gets incorporated into any useful product. Sure, some is earth-changing, but most is not even close. And soldiers, and cops, in spite of their value and upkeep, don't really produce any goods or services either. Occasionally they earn their keep, but most of the time they are just training. Not everyone is a productive cog in the economy, and many of those who are are grossly overpaid because they have the political or economic power to define how much their labor is worth.

At every level of technology, we have more people than we have work for them to do, after all, isn't that why we have technology, so we don't have to work as hard? That's the whole point of civilization, to free us from the grueling routine maintenance of sustaining life and give us the time to have fun. And by "fun", I don't necessarily mean hedonistic pleasure-seeking, I mean building cathedrals, composing symphonies, flying to other planets, writing poetry and doing particle physics. People are not naturally lazy, they love to work, on their hobbies and sports and businesses and careers. They can't wait to leave the office and get home and work on that '57 Chevy they're restoring. Its only the work we do for other people, to make them rich from our labor, that is soulless and mind-killing. That's why businessmen often have such contempt for working people, the boss gets paid for what he loves to do, his workers are there because they have no choice.

We have always had more people than we did jobs. Even hunter-gatherers took care of their kids and their old, and helped their sick
and crippled as best they could. Instead of distributing our excess wealth solely to those who own or manage or work in our society, a part of it should be made available to those we can no longer figure out how to employ, but who are willing to work. They will find something worthwhile to do. In fact, I'd be willing to bet many of them will use their wealth to create things the rest of us are willing to pay for.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. In fact, if you think about it, that is exactly what the human race has been doing
since it came down from the trees: producing excess wealth that can be diverted into investment, those unable to work, into labor specialization, and into art, science and culture. All human societies are capable of producing a surplus, at least most of the time.

Not everyone has to work, that is not some future dystopia, that's the way its ALWAYS been. Its the way it SHOULD be. For centuries the working day and working week has been getting shorter, and productivity and the standard of living going up. That is no accident. That is the purpose of civilization, but that knowledge is hidden from us by those who'd rather tap into it for their own benefit.

The apocalypse you describe is not an inevitable result of human progress. It has been deliberately created and promoted by those who plan to profit from it. In my own life I've always noted the easier a job was, and the more fun it was, the better it paid. That is no accident, either.

In fact, that's why the rich don't want to subsidize the poor. They are afraid of the competition.