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If all labor is automated and nobody can earn anything selling their own anymore, all that’s left are the other two factors of production: capital and land. La
by larsiusprime 1y ago
If all labor is automated and nobody can earn anything selling their own anymore, all that’s left are the other two factors of production: capital and land.
Land is scarce and cant be produced, so whoever already owns it will benefit after the change.
Capital can be produced, but what produces it? Labor. Even worse, capital depreciates over time so just owning some now doesn’t guarantee you an income in the post labor future.
In a fully automated world where human labor is truly of zero value it seems the main returns in the long run are to those who can gate keep valuable land, natural resources, and other fundamentally scarce assets.
- myth_drannon 1y agoThat's why the tech billionaires buy islands. It's easier to protect the land in the coming conflicts.
- cool_man_bob 1y agoNotice they’re building castles too. Look deeper you can even find insane sounding manifestos describing feudal style martial-loyalty oaths.
- emchammer 1y agoReference for techno-neo-feudal loyalty oath please?
- myth_drannon 1y agoAnd the lords of the land fly their jets while asking the subjects to reduce their climate footprint.
- archagon 1y agoFeudal lords, at least, had the wisdom to build their castles in the middle of their protected fiefdoms. In times of social upheaval, a doomsday bunker just becomes a particularly juicy oyster to shuck.
- mopsi 1y agoHow many divisions does Zuck have?
- optimalsolver 1y agoHow will they protect themselves from their own security forces?
- myth_drannon 1y agoAh, that's the billion-dollar question. In most of the revolutions, the army, not the citizenry, was the one who went against the ruler. For example that's why Putin kept his army weakened and ineffective and had Wagner force(which still tried to revolt).
- ryandrake 1y agoThey're hoping AI and robotics will be capable of handling security by that time.
- xboxnolifes 1y agoTreat them well enough, and they become the new middle class. Not rich, but not poor enough to revolt.
- android521 1y agoWell , if that’s the case , it would be much easier to tax the land owners. Can have exponentially bigger tax so the more land they own, the more tax they have to pay until they can’t afford to own the land. They can’t run as they can’t bring the land with them . Socialism might work in that world
- larsiusprime 1y ago> Socialism might work in that world Technically, what you've just described is Georgism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism The real question is, in a truly post-labor future, how do workers have enough leverage to negotiate for any particular change in the economic system?
- kubb 1y agoViolence. Unfortunately.
- HeyImAlex 1y agoIn the times of the French Revolution that was enough, but I think technology is obsoleting us there too. If evil oligarch can make a bunker and ten million $100 kill bots, I don’t think the people are rising up unless existence is worse than death, and even then they might not win.
- dangus 1y agoThe article asserts that as wealth has increased, so has spending on social programs. I think what isn’t said here is that there was a lot of blood involved in getting weekends and 8 hour workdays. Labor strikes used to be violent, and social programs are pitchfork insurance for the global elite. If the owners of capital control all means of production, all automated, they will control literal robot armies - we already see this developing with drones and the like. It’s entirely possible that the global elite succeeds in fighting off the underclass and their reality looks a lot more like Elysium where the owners of capital do not have to worry about the angry masses reaching them.
- ryandrake 1y agoEvery time I say we are headed towards an Elysium-like world, it gets downvoted pretty quickly. Yet all signs are pointed to that trajectory! The rich are getting richer, they live in essentially their own world already--they're buying islands and building fortresses. They are more and more just selling to each other because the rest of us are essentially irrelevant to commerce. It's reasonable to assume we are moving towards a society where a mere 1-10M or so people live walled-off somewhere in luxury (not necessarily a space station) while the remaining 8B people are economically irrelevant, scraping by in the periphery.
- Jupe 1y agoWhich is already happening. This is why stock buy-backs, IPO-less/private companies and private equity rule the future. This "wealth" will NOT come from government subsidies or UBI. It will stay where it is, with enough income doled out to the masses to keep the supply/demand economy chugging along.