Player Piano

Industrial automation — no AI at all. Included because the labour argument is identical.

A small engineering and managerial elite still works. Everyone else is sorted into the Army or the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps — the Reeks and Wrecks — who repair roads that do not need repairing, and drink.

Obsolescence — The work goes, and standing goes with it.

The only work here that treats the problem as class rather than philosophy. Everyone is fed. Nobody is needed.