I wonder, how can people compete with them? How can the unemployed who could have worked there afford to buy the products?
Sure this procedure reduces the price of the products, but this does not help people who can't find job in an anarchist society.
Um, no, lower prices do in fact help people who can't find a job. Lower prices of necessities means people can afford more luxuries. Which in turn means more jobs are available producing luxuries for the people who can now afford them.
In a society were most things are mass produced, say, by 3D printers, these luxuries won't create many jobs. The problem remains.
A solution might be to reduce the number of hours worked in a week, like a 24-hour workweek.
However, most workers will not be willing to freely give up their work hours, even if the wages were higher, and that is perfectly just.
I don't know what planet you're from, but here on Earth, if you offer your employees less hours and higher wages, nobody will refuse your offer.
I'm quite sure most employers prefer to keep 100 employees working 40 hours, than 200 working 20 - less management, human ressources, and formations costs. Thus they would not have many incencitive to redistribute the work. Also, workaholics are very real. Where I worked at, people felt cheated when they only got 32 work hours and were jumping on overtime opportunities everytime they had the chance, even though the salary at that place was good.
Also, reducing the time of the work-week might be a problem for employers, since it means paying more for formations, and it might make it harder for them to get to know competent and trustworthy employees. ie they would not do it unless some form of government forces them.
This may come as a shock to you, but most companies don't actually give a shit about getting to know their employees. If, as a result of automation or any other factors, there is less work to be done, companies will either cut workers' hours or fire some of them. No company is going to pay workers to stand around and do nothing (unless they have a government contract).
Of course they don't give a shit about getting to know them, but they do care about keeping competent and trustworthy employees, and that's easier to manage when you have fewer of them working more hours. And of course they'll fire some of them and won't pay workers to stand around and to nothing, that is unrelated to the issue.
Perhaps some form of wealth redistribution will be inevitable in the future because of this problem?
Wealth redistribution isn't a problem, it's a normal and necessary aspect of trade. Wealth is distributed from consumers to producers. If you want to become wealthy in a capitalist society, you must produce things that are valuable to society (this concept is hard for governments to grasp).
Yes and this is the most rational system for today's society. But my thought-problem is: if you must produce valuable things to survive, how will you be able to when 90% of the workforce is automatised? I agree that your answers apply perfectly for the short term, but I'm not sure that system will be viable for long if technology continues to get better.
