General Discussion

The argument leads to a non-monetary based society. Worth can be ignored -and it should be. We produce enough food to feed the world with plenty to spare. We're not going to Mars because of economic factors. People are miserable because they don't have enough money, even though the very concept of money is antiquated by our technology and knowledge. Abandoning money and worth will unleash our possibilities to the fullest.

You say, "...we exchange our labor for pay...". That's only part what we exchange. We also exchange our time which is much more valuable than any training or education we possess. We can learn a new job, a new language, etc. Yet our time counts for nothing, only our training is taken into account. Our entire lives -family, friends, etc.- are subordinate to the economy. In short, our lives are an economic externality. In fact, economically speaking people are an externality. This clearly is evident by the number of jobs that are now done through automation. The number of jobs done by automation is ever-increasing at an ever increasing rate. What happens when the inevitable occurs, when humans are not needed to do all but a very few jobs?

That brings up another point which I'll only mention briefly here: Who benefits from all this automation? Is it the people or the economy that derives real benefit from automation?