Inbetween the current world full of labor scarcity, and the philosophical dilemma "what do I even do" post-scarcity utopia, is a world similar to our current one with much less labor scarcity and much more quality of life. That's what we're aiming for right now. What comes afterwards we can worry about then.
Quality of life for who, though? That's kind of the point of all this back and forth isn't it? Because if prior examples are anything to go on the likeliest outcome is we're talking about further increasing QoL for a small minority of individuals who least need it at the expense of basically everyone else.
According to the Pew Trust (and my own personal observations) the middle class has been shrinking more or less steadily for the last 50 years. Through what mechanism is eliminating existing jobs expected to reverse this trend?
It was not. Maybe measured in relative terms the middle class is shrinking due to income inequality, but in absolute terms I am fairly confident it is at worst stagnating in America and western Europe. In many parts of the rest of the world there has been an amazing growth of a middle class that didn't exist before in the last decades. Eastern europe and asia of course.
I'm not certain what you base your confidence on given trackable economic and social mobility markers don't support it. Its fascinating that apologists default to some combination of postmodern argle-bargle over defining the term "middle class" and pointing to modest economic successes in what until recently were unambiguously 3rd world countries when a discussion of the middle class in America comes up. I honestly do not understand the perceived relevance of economic outcomes in ex-soviet countries in this context, unless the goal is to provide some kind of cover for neoliberal economic theory, which also seems nonsensical unless one is some form of pundit or politician.
50 years ago a single income family being able to afford to own their home, at least one car in the driveway, school their children, and comfortably save for retirement was the generally accepted definition of "middle class". I honestly can't be bothered to even look up what passes for a more modern definition given regardless of where those goalposts get planted someone's going to argue anything north of abject poverty is "middle class". After having sat a few hundred iterations of that debate I think I can feel my soul trying to leave my body at the mere thought of doing another lap.
One of the things that freaks me out the most about this kind of cognitive-dissonance-fueled shit flinging contest is I am deeply mystified by the notion that there's even anything controversial here. Rural America is not ok. The average cost of a house and a medical degree in the US are approaching parity. The current rise in populism also didn't spontaneously arise, it's a reaction to economic pressure (among other things). How much worse does it have to get before the conversation pivots from "is there a problem" to "k, maybe we should work on some of this"?
You know, it doesn't really matter to the original point. If the middle class is doing okay or if it's struggling, either way household androids and more generally less labor scarcity are exactly the kind of thing that will improve the situation.
Except it will do literally no such thing. The working classes exist because of scarcity of labor, not despite it. Adding labor to the pool dilutes the value of a unit of labor (supply and demand). Only the tiny minority of individuals who own and control capital are positioned to capture any benefits accrued by increased availability of labor.
