Bakari you many not have been referring to tech jobs but half this thread is devoted to saying that only tech/artistic will be left.
I'm not referring only to the distant future, when robots can do
everything a human can do better (I'm not sure why tech jobs would be spared at that point though - the computers will be able to write better code than programmers - they will probably use the word "programmer" to refer to tech writing software, just like how the original meaning of computers (people who do calculations) got coopted!)
I'm referring to right now, and including all the time up until that point. When only artistic jobs are left, we will need a much more massive and radical change in thinking about wealth, earning, deserving, labor, capital, etc, but dealing with the already existing problem now would help make the transition a lot easier.
Doubling or tripling the number of people in the mix and having each only work 2 days per week (that may not overlap) would be a royal hassle and slow productivity to a crawl.
You make a good point about certain industries being easier than others.
I'd imagine its a part of the reason that professionals (doctors, lawyers, some engineers), and executives are all exempt from overtime pay.
But on a more general level, these same arguments were made when we went from an 80-hour standard work week to a 40-hour one.
Of course it
was a hassle, and it
did (temporarily) slow productivity growth, but in the long run those hick-ups didn't matter. The redistributive effects (from capital to labor) remained (at least until computers and the global economy).
CliffsNotes version: it does not work well and actually slows things down.
Even if things did slow down, a large part of my larger argument is that it is OK if things slow down. Infinite growth is not possible, regardless of technology, there are limiting factors. So a system dependant on growth either has to change dramatically, or else eventually fail. Our current system is dependant on infinite growth. If we reevaluate our priorities, acknowledge that we have more than enough already, and begin to value sustainability of the system over growth, then we can allow things to slow down all the way down to replacement level.