A look at two possible futures once robots do most of the work: shared abundance, or a system where whoever controls the money controls your life.

• The optimistic path is no jobs but universal basic income, paid out by a government that decides how much you get and on what terms.
• The risk is that handouts come bundled with digital ID and surveillance, concentrating power in whoever writes the checks.
• If people no longer produce value, their access to money depends entirely on political permission rather than work.
• Markets keep climbing partly because everyone is racing to land on the winning side of a split economy.
• The window to get ahead by building a business or owning assets may be closing, since future gains flow mainly to people who already own things.

Outlook: Expect the push into ownership — businesses, stocks, hard assets — to intensify as people position for an economy where labor stops paying.