I've had any number of friends on electronics assembly lines. Yeah, I could do their job - but it would involve some training. No, they don't do the same mindless thing all day long - that went out at the end of WWII. As far as "the rest of humanity" here's $200 a month in a Mumbai sweatshop: http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/201104/mughal.maal.htm Tell me that isn't "skilled labor." Rusikoff is making the same tired argument that Abbie Hoffman made back in the '60s: "The government should exist only to provide basic needs for its citizens so we can sit back and drop acid." The problem is that HUMANS DON'T WORK THIS WAY. We seek mastery, we relish competition and we strive to make an indelible mark upon the world. For nearly all of us, that means "a job" - a job we get good at, a job we can teach others, a job we are respected for doing. The "peasant economy" worked because the sphere of influence of the average human even 100 years ago was pretty much "everyone around me that I can comfortably travel to in an afternoon" which wasn't a whole lot of people. Yet according to Ian Jukes, a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than was available to the average citizen in the 18th century in their lifetime. Could we all go back to pastoral living on the commons? Yes. Just as soon as all cities with a population over 1000 are eradicated. Until then it's a childish, ignorant pipe dream.