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But no salaries -> no consumption -> no profit for companies. I don't see how that's effective capitalism.

tivert 2y ago
> But no salaries -> no consumption -> no profit for companies. No, you just need a little more imagination. What would the economy look like if you didn't need employees to utilize resources or undertake projects? Some very mass-market consumer oriented companies would eventually go bankrupt during the transition, but that doesn't mean a doom scenario like I describe can't or won't happen. > I don't see how that's effective capitalism. And you know what? The end result of the transition might only vaguely resemble current-day capitalism, and may be more properly understood as a transition to a new economic system. However, I think it would probably be like our current economy, except with: * the B2C segment withered mainly to luxury goods of elites (yachts, supercars, elite-level fine dining) and sustaining a much smaller elite-service-focused labor pool; * B2B being most of what's left of the market; and * non-market vanity projects taking up a substantial slice of the pie (e.g. Elon Musk using a robot army to build ziggurats to celebrate himself, because why not).
- tuatoru 2y ago
  This misunderstands the economy. It's driven by household and government spending. All that B2B stuff happens because some company, somewhere at the end of the chain, sells to households or the government. Sure, there is also business investment. But that only happens because someone expects to sell to households or the government. If all you are selling is luxury goods, which depend on direct high labor content for their value, then most of the B2B businesses disappear also. And yes, there are exports. But not at global scale. The globe is closed.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > This misunderstands the economy. It's driven by household and government spending. All that B2B stuff happens because some company, somewhere at the end of the chain, sells to households or the government. No, I didn't misunderstand it. Let me put it in your terms: the remaining elite become tiny but massively consuming households, and the distinctions between the businesses they control and their households will be blurred (e.g. Blue Origin being wholly owned by Bezos). All the economic actors that cannot provide value to these households will get slowly cut off and wither away, and these elites (collectively) will eventually cement total control over all the valuable resources they have some use for (production capacity, compute, energy, raw materials, etc). To go back to a question I asked upthread: what would the economy look like if you didn't need employees to utilize resources or undertake projects? What happens when most households aren't competitive at anything economically, but there's still a lot of stuff out there to be owned? My answer is those who own the right things (e.g. AI-run, totally automated, adaptable factories; energy resources) will be able to support themselves indefinitely with them and have massive personal surpluses they then use for vanity projects to keep themselves occupied.

> But no salaries -> no consumption -> no profit for companies. No, you just need a little more imagination. What would the economy look like if you didn't need employees to utilize resources or undertake projects? Some very mass-market consumer oriented companies would eventually go bankrupt during the transition, but that doesn't mean a doom scenario like I describe can't or won't happen. > I don't see how that's effective capitalism. And you know what? The end result of the transition might only vaguely resemble current-day capitalism, and may be more properly understood as a transition to a new economic system. However, I think it would probably be like our current economy, except with: * the B2C segment withered mainly to luxury goods of elites (yachts, supercars, elite-level fine dining) and sustaining a much smaller elite-service-focused labor pool; * B2B being most of what's left of the market; and * non-market vanity projects taking up a substantial slice of the pie (e.g. Elon Musk using a robot army to build ziggurats to celebrate himself, because why not).

tuatoru 2y ago
This misunderstands the economy. It's driven by household and government spending. All that B2B stuff happens because some company, somewhere at the end of the chain, sells to households or the government. Sure, there is also business investment. But that only happens because someone expects to sell to households or the government. If all you are selling is luxury goods, which depend on direct high labor content for their value, then most of the B2B businesses disappear also. And yes, there are exports. But not at global scale. The globe is closed.
- tivert 2y ago
  > This misunderstands the economy. It's driven by household and government spending. All that B2B stuff happens because some company, somewhere at the end of the chain, sells to households or the government. No, I didn't misunderstand it. Let me put it in your terms: the remaining elite become tiny but massively consuming households, and the distinctions between the businesses they control and their households will be blurred (e.g. Blue Origin being wholly owned by Bezos). All the economic actors that cannot provide value to these households will get slowly cut off and wither away, and these elites (collectively) will eventually cement total control over all the valuable resources they have some use for (production capacity, compute, energy, raw materials, etc). To go back to a question I asked upthread: what would the economy look like if you didn't need employees to utilize resources or undertake projects? What happens when most households aren't competitive at anything economically, but there's still a lot of stuff out there to be owned? My answer is those who own the right things (e.g. AI-run, totally automated, adaptable factories; energy resources) will be able to support themselves indefinitely with them and have massive personal surpluses they then use for vanity projects to keep themselves occupied.