> Human labour isn't all that important in a modern economy We keep hearing this from allegedly credible people and institutions, yet when people stop buying p

> Human labour isn't all that important in a modern economy We keep hearing this from allegedly credible people and institutions, yet when people stop buying products (with the result of their own productivity) or worse still, go on strike, suddenly the gears of the machine stop cold and the leadership of whatever industry is crying to the government to end the strike for them because negotiation is hard. I have heard since I was a kid in the 90's how it was ludicrous to pay McDonalds workers more than $10 an hour because McDonalds wouldn't make any money that way, and those employees would be replaced with robots. Today the one nearest me is offering $15 an hour, and they kiiiind of automated the cashiers? Not really though, you can still order from a person if you want, and everyone past that step who's actually making and handing you the food is still very much a human, with seemingly little if any progress towards those positions being automated. Mind you, McDonalds is apparently not making money anymore but that was the status quo pre-pandemic when they still paid workers like complete shit. That seems to have far more to do with McDonalds corporate blowing shit tons of cash on celebrity endorsements and ineffective advertising, as well as heavy product discounting on a product that's just not kept up with industry/social trends. And all that's past the pandemic and the drama it created both with allowing many workers the time and capital for themselves to ascend out of tons of these shitty jobs which has left a gap in employment since that no one has stopped whining about. Anyway the point is the "post human labor" economy is largely a joke, for starters, if you don't have humans buying your products, you don't have a business, and nobody can buy them if nobody is working. Second, because despite the constant threat of automation levied against working class people, we really do seem to be hitting the limits, at least in present technology, of what we can make machines do. > In the English speaking world we've even managed to disconnect GDP from energy and now people are confused why GDP goes up but real living standards don't change all that much and everyone is shifting to fixed-pie thinking. I mean I don't think that's so much a result of GDP being disconnected from energy (nor do I have a solid grasp of what that means) as much as more and more of the results of productivity seem to go into the pockets of a handful of people while just getting by gets more expensive year-over-year, and people tend to notice that.