Our job now is to consider a future without work

Ryan Avent is right to warn that we may be heading towards a world without work (Journal, 19 September). Unfortunately, mainstream economists are not listening. Indeed, in the past, automation has not caused lasting unemployment. Instead, it has made products and services cheaper, which raises demand for them and other products, and eventually creates new jobs. But past rounds of automation replaced human and animal muscle power. That was fine for the humans, who could go on to jobs that were often more interesting and less dangerous, using their cognitive faculties instead of just muscle power. It didn't work out so well for the horse.

Related: A world without work is coming - it could be utopia or it could be hell | Ryan Avent