Then again, all this promise of a new era of growth and prosperity might simply go bust. With all those manufacturing jobs, service jobs, even professional jobs becoming redundant, we might end up with no jobs, period.
The downsizing is already happening. The idea that these jobs will be replaced by new kinds of knowledge-sector jobs is based on a reading of the past, plus expectation of developments in the future -- and a certain amount of faith.
Let's plunge into an alternative view, a plausible worst-case scenario of economic deterioration and see where it might take us:
In the coming decades, large corporations still rule. Rather than breaking apart into smaller units or dying off, they thrive by getting leaner and meaner.
Those "subcontractors" working outside the corporate fold are given only paltry tasks with minimal rewards -- take it or leave it.
Inside the corporations, things aren't much better. The fear of being laid off makes everyone put up with intolerable work loads and accept stagnant wages and declining benefits.
The overall economic and social environment deteriorates, along the lines that Jeremy Rifkin lays out in his book "The End of Work." With wages down and the standard of living falling for many, people don't have the money to purchase more consumer goods. Demand for products and services slips, leading to more layoffs.
Government can't pick up the slack with more government jobs or the social safety net: It's retrenching and downsizing too. Even the military, the tried-and-true method for employing young people, is tightening the belt.
Credit isn't the answer: Everyone maxed out their credit in the 1980s. The government has done about as much deficit spending as possible. Banks are overextended.
Then things start to get really bad, as James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg outline in "The Great Reckoning: Protect Yourself in the Coming Depression."
The urban underclass, with almost no means of support, swells and turns increasingly violent. Outbreaks like the 1992 Los Angeles riots become much more common.
As the affluent and middle classes back out of big cities, the real-estate property they leave behind plunges in value. Those overextended banks are often left holding the bag. Just like the Savings and Loans, they go bankrupt.
If the banks were to crash like those in the 1930s, they might not be able to turn to the nearly bankrupt feds this time around. We'd have a real mess on our hands.
If that's not enough, consider one more ominous parallel to that time.
In the 1920s, the German Weimar Republic was a fragile democracy with a limping economy after its defeat in World War I. Throughout the decade, it was ravaged by hyperinflation that helped pave the way for the rise of fascism in the guise of the Nazis.
Today, the Cold War is over. The Western powers are triumphant again. And the Russian republic is building a fragile democracy.
But the Russian economy is in a shambles -- some would say nearing a collapse. Joblessness and organized crime feed renewed interest in right-wing parties, including one that attracted 22 percent of the vote in the last Russian presidential election.
All it would take is an unforgiving global economy to help create a fascist government in a desperate Russia. It could be another Nazi Germany -- this time with nukes.
