story
Probably before that hits, automation for most of the product. Eventually we will need very few people to produce any part of the product. We will automate resource extraction. Automate resource delivery. Automate resource refinement. Etc.
So this leaves us with a large population that has little point in the current economic system. So we'll get higher unemployment globally. Historically this has lead to wars, either internal or external. Marx/Hegel are right. The haves and the have-nots will duke it out. The have-nots will, like Norther American generals in the civil war, throw bodies at the haves. Eventually coming to a new equilibrium of far fewer have-nots (many are dead) and probably fewer haves. Eventually everything is owned commonly and a new society is birthed based on the idea of self actualization through experimentation.
Sound familiar ? if it works so far, why won't it work further on ?
Add to that the free use of marijuana (which generally decreases motivation ) , the better capabilities of police enforcing crimes, the possible growing acceptance of unemployment in an automated society, you'll see even further reductions.
[1]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111191-Less-Crime-...
War is always a safe prediction, but do you have a specific historical precedent for large-scale, long-term, structural unemployment? I cannot think of one.
(Subsistence agriculture is not unemployment.)
As far as outward wars: WWII. Massive economic for German. War helped create jobs.
Edited to add German example.
Perhaps we'll move away from consuming things that need to be manufactured and towards digital goods instead.
Once all the prospects for very cheap human labor are exhausted, the work goes to robots.
It doesn't go to higher paid humans. That future will not happen.
