Basically, you're arguing that the Luddites were right. I agree with you. I think they were. But I don't think you've thought it through when you say the old ways are dying.

In the '30s those workers were needed to make things. Now they aren't. That 40 or 50 or 60 percent have no economic function. Combine that with overpopulation and all its attendant problems, and with a small military that holds all the cards if it's not constrained by humanitarian considerations, and you have an unimaginable dystopia in the making.

I'm wondering if we're already over-capacity in terms of our ability to produce/acquire things we actually need, plus plenty of extras. We have a big chunk of people working in the health insurance industry who get paid for providing an anti-service. We import endless disposable junk from China that we quickly dispose of. Etc.

I think we need to start looking seriously at reducing the work week, as a start - hire 1 extra person per every 8 employees now working 7-hour days. (Well, first we have to do what it takes to move some of that wealth out of that top 3% and back into the real economy. Wages have to go up too.) Increase vacation time as well - everyone needs 4-6 weeks off a year, as is the norm in several European countries. And, we have to make healthcare affordable - I think there's several slices of the population that would actually quite happily work part-time, if they weren't desperate for medical insurance. America works too much, doesn't get enough sleep, doesn't have time for civic involvement or time to cook healthy meals. Productivity has risen steadily but people remain overworked (when they can get it). It's unhealthy and unsustainable.

Before anything can happen to reverse the present trends of wealth flowing to an evermore limited few the concept that an artificial state created entity that constitutionally can not vote to control elections, legislation and government in general is not empowered to control these things as though the government was a wholly owned subsidiary of those corporations (and Wall Street). Either through legislation, a constitutional amendment or a Court ruling the right of free speech of those entities not empowered by the constitution to vote must lose the ability in matters that involve influencing elections, politicians and legislation where influence constitutionally is limited to those empowered to exercise such influence with the vote. In other words: An entity not empowered to influence government policy with the vote has no standing to claim free speech rights in matters in which the constitution has limited the authority to exercise such influence to those that have been empowered with the vote to accomplish that influence.
I have no knowledge of any case in which freedom of speech to influence non-governmental policy and the right to vote to influence governmental policy were equivalent. Since the constitution provides a separate means for influencing governmental make-up and policy there is no reason to assume that freedom of speech for those entities not empowered with the vote should be considered equivalent and apply equally to both those empowered to vote and those not empowered to vote. It could as easily be argued that the freedom of speech ends where the right to vote begins! If these two rights were in fact recognized as being separated and not equivalent using money to buy influence in government (now considered constitutional as a part of free speech) would instead be considered unconstitutional because only the right to vote (I.E. a vote of approval or disapproval of a congressperson's stand on an issue replacing other communications to influence how that person represents his/her constituents) rather than the present donations of money as free speech for such influence.

Only when the power of corporate money is eliminated and the ability of corporations to control government policy as a way to protect and increase the corporate bottom line will we avoid becoming the Corporate States of America with laws written by lobbyist to enslave the people to the service of those corporations by keeping the people so close to going under they must do whatever the corporations demand. The present downturn is just a symptom of how the corporations increase their profits by getting rid of workers while threatening to replace anyone who wants better with replacement by one of the multitude waiting outside the gate. Recessions are just another tool used by corporations to get even more since it puts them in a position to make even higher profits by demanding more productivity while claiming as profit what is instead being dumped on the social safety net instead of costing them as wages. This and a stock market that flourished because of the recession for all others, the speculator who does not invest but makes quick trades in order to drain money out of the economy without putting anything productive into it and the whole trickle-down economics that Obama has bought into throwing money at those rich enough to engineer this downturn for their own gain as trickle-down was intended to do from the day Reaganomics was first proposed as a way to allow those at the top to leverage even more profits.

As long as corporation can control the government we will be their slaves.