Meanwhile the more menial &#x2F; labor-intensive jobs are being replaced by automation. I read somewhere that automation was supposed to be the great liberator, enabling an ever-increasing amount of leisure time. But at some point attitudes started shifting so that people must justify their existence by continuously working hard; and if things don&#x27;t happen to work out for them, well they just weren&#x27;t motivated enough. This attitude is apparent in our [US] welfare system which has a huge administrative overhead in place to prevent freeloading.