I like your sentence, it's a philosophical study which requires an economics analysis. If we take the hypothesis that we can't afford living here because we're

I like your sentence, it's a philosophical study which requires an economics analysis. If we take the hypothesis that we can't afford living here because we're limited by artificial abnormalities, like the wealth being abnormally concentrated, then wouldn't the rich actually employ those people (under various forms, like purchasing more goods/houses, directly hiring servants, making use of hotels/restaurants, etc) ? It could happen that the rich are so rich that they can't consume the money they have or even invest it, but again, that would lead in a depreciation of money which would adjust it until everyone could act as if the rich people's unused stash didn't exist at all. If we take the opposite hypothesis, which is that we can't afford living here because we're limited by actual resources, it means there are too many people on Earth. If USA were strictly equally divided, each person would have 32,000 square meters to produce wealth. While that seems enough to grow carrots for one person, it may not be enough to grow enough of them to exchange with televisions, meat, health care, education and store for retirement. The average human's footprint is higher than their share. In this case, it's not too much mechanization or automation, it's that both the rich's footprint and the poor's footprint are distortedly higher than the goods they've produced. Here you go: The money we have isn't worth what we believe, USA can only exist through the slavery of Chinese workers, and we shall see some sharp adjustment for the rich in the future. Unless they keep on distorting the economy in their favor.