World evolves

Coal mining,

hard manual work for men

(and children and ponies)

replaced by just men and machines,

hard work that few would want today

but it employed thousands.

Followed by retail

(Pick & Mix had a different connotation),

followed by human robots

and then just robots.

"Poetry Please" might satisfy some

but I can't see it being a major generator

in economic value.

Are we going to have to have a major rethink

about the notion of "earning a living",

if we don't we are going to be very impoverished in more ways than one.

The odd thing is that in the 1930s

it was an Austrian

that railed against the control

wielded by the stateless megawealthy.