> Once those "just wanna drink a beer" people have their jobs automated away, they will never again have money to participate in the economy again.
This is the whole topic of this article. The economy is broken wrt. progress and needs to be fixed. Two pillars of our economic system - scarcity and endless growth - are both being destroyed as we speak.
> "Two pillars of our economic system - scarcity and endless growth"
Clearly "endless" is not possible, that's like saying "give me infinite apples" ... Most people aren't concerned with endless, but with "practically endless"
The limits of endless growth come from physical limits, which we're no where close to hitting. Expansion across the universe could give us something on the order of 10^29 times expansion (universe ~10^53kg, Earth ~10^24 kg)... In my human scale that's practically "endless".
Also, digital goods consumption have nearly no marginal physical cost, so they can expand without much change in the physical consumption.
2) The general public gets to participate in commodity markets. Not the trading commodity market, but the consumer markets. No more buying food, medical care, housing, clothing, no longer participants in the system. The monetary economy is for other people, the rich, not everyone or even the majority.
Middle class is going away for sure. It has always been a historical abnormality anyway.
As for the latter -- people have been participating in monetary economy long before industrial revolution, and will be participating whichever way the society evolves -- it is just simply more convenient than barter. If someone can produce beer himself cheaper than it is available on the market, why would he not sell it and earn some money? And if he cannot make it cheaper, why would he not buy it instead (or not drink it at all if he is too poor, or steal money & buy beer, or...) -- the point is that whatever he does, making it himself is never a good idea unless he enjoys it as a (somewhat expensive) hobby.
This is the whole topic of this article. The economy is broken wrt. progress and needs to be fixed. Two pillars of our economic system - scarcity and endless growth - are both being destroyed as we speak.