"In 19th century all sorts of intellectually menial yet physically demanding tasks provided people with average intelligence an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the economy and, hence, society: with this came "middle class" culture and values, the values that "every-man" mattered, had value, and that popular consensus could guide society towards the greater good.

As technology displaced labor in favor of capital, fewer and fewer people became socially relevant, till we reached the point where we are today, where computers are close to making white-collar workers of mediocre intelligence totally redundant.

We will live in command-economy: the question is at what rate we achieve this, not when."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvjGOncSyHM&NR