Those profiteering on the employed, moneywise or politically, make us ignore, to our peril, the unemployed.

Sir, Kiran Stacey and Anna Nicolaou report on “Emerging nations in South Asia and beyond are pinning their development hopes on creating millions of low-paid manufacturing jobs over the next decade. Advances in automation threaten to derail the plan.”, “Stitched up by robots”, July 18.

And Rajiv Kumar an economist and founder of the Pahle India Foundation says: “Robotics and artificial intelligence are the next revolution. They are going to be more disruptive than any of the revolutions we have seen in the past — steam, electricity, the assembly line or computers — because they are going to replace not just routine but complex mental functions. The fear is that our so-called demographic dividend could become a demographic nightmare.”

Absolutely! In 2003 I already wrote about the possible need for sitting around in a great human circle, scratching each other backs, and paying good money for the service

And in 2012, more desperate, I called out that “We need worthy and decent unemployments”

Currently there are too much resources wasted, dedicated to trying to generate employments, and too little trying to make unemployment socially livable. Why? Might it be because the employed have more resources with which to pay their defenders?

We must do something, perhaps like a universal basic income, before social order breaks down. Reconstructing social order is so much harder. I as a Venezuelan should know.

@PerKurowski