We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

[eppur_se_muova]

28. It takes only a small percentage of the population to cover that completely ...

... and as automation increases, it will be even more so. For the rest, there are some real jobs, some makework, and unemployment.

A bigger question, of course, is what "needs" to be done ?

It is worth noting that in primitive* societies adults spend only about 20 hrs/wk procuring the necessities of life. Much of the rest of the time is spent in social interaction.



* In the literal sense, i.e. those that originated first. IIRC studies of both Australian aboriginal societies and African Bushmen hunter-gatherers have led to this conclusion.

1. The work is not burdensome because there is not too much of it.

According to several quantitative studies, hunter-gatherers typically devote about 20 hours per week to hunting or food gathering and another 10 to 20 hours to chores at the campsite, such as food processing and making or mending tools (e.g. Lee, 2003; Sahlins, 1972). All in all, the research suggests, hunter-gatherer adults spend an average of 30 to 40 hours per week on all subsistence-related activities combined, which is considerably less than the workweek of the typical modern American, if the American’s 40 or more hours of out-of-home work is added to the many hours spent on domestic chores.

One anthropologist, Marshall Sahlins (1972), has famously characterized hunter-gatherer societies collectively as “the original affluent society.” An affluent society, by Sahlins’s definition, is one in which “people’s material wants are easily satisfied.” Hunter-gatherers are affluent not because they have so much, but because they want so little. They can provide for those wants with relatively little work, and, as a result, they have lots of free time, which they spend, according to one observer of the Ju/’hoansi (Shostak, 1981, p 10), at such activities as “singing and composing songs, playing musical instruments, sewing intricate bead designs, telling stories, playing games, visiting, or just lying around and resting.” These are just the kinds of activities that we would expect of happy, relaxed people anywhere.

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Hunter-Gatherers_and_Play