Why We Work, and What We'll Do in a Post

Key points

Technology has always affected work but the next wave of technology may be different.

Work fulfills not only essential physical needs for us but also psychological needs.

Even if a work-free world offers physical abundance, we may still experience psychological poverty.

For anyone employed and under the age of 55, the next decade may reveal a job landscape unlike anything ever seen since the beginning of the Industrial Age (circa 1760): a world without work.

Historically, technology often displaced workers. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century, for example, displaced thousands of clerical workers who were then employed to manually write book copies. And the invention of the automobile displaced an entire economy of horse-based transportation in the early