This could lead to a scenario with what happened when there was aristocracy. Land was a major necessary means of production and was overwhelmingly owned by the

This could lead to a scenario with what happened when there was aristocracy. Land was a major necessary means of production and was overwhelmingly owned by the aristocracy, it was guarded since they had no reason to sell it and could rent-seek with it, and they simply owned nearly everything. Don’t look now, but that’s still the case. In England it’s really the case, and the old joke that it helps to have an ancestor who was close to William The Conquerer is genuinely true. Craftsmanship and high demand for skilled labor led to the middle class. Automation could be the new land. A wealthy "owning class" owns all the means of production (and less skilled labor) and has no incentive to open it up. Automation could lead to a small wealthy class, but a rapidly expanding lower class with little access to self-ownership of means of production. Again, that has largely already happened, and never really stopped. We just see things differently because we’re not one of billions who can only look up at everyone else’s boots, and because we’re at the tail end of a stable period born from two world wars and the teror of nuclear annihilation.