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What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? Thus nobody buying anything. We'll gain so much efficiency that the economy will evaporate.

What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? Thus nobody buying anything. We'll gain so much efficiency that the economy will evaporate. The markets can't survive on capital alone. LOL. Like a diet focusing on a single macro. When all that is left is capital, then that is an unhealthy diet.

butterbomb 8mo ago
> What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? I’m suspecting something like Soylent Green, but perhaps with more proactive action taken to free up resources by removal of masses who are no longer producing enough value to justify their expenses. Following up, I believe eventually it will all be replaced by something much more resembling feudal power. Where bound servants provide service labor in exchange for protection/survival. Something like fuedalism but without the agricultural focus of manorialism.
- Henchman21 8mo ago
  > but perhaps with more proactive action taken to free up resources by removal of masses who are no longer producing enough value to justify their expenses. How bout we remove the heads of the wealthy and hoist them on petards outside their former dwellings instead? We don't need to justify the removal of these cancerous lumps of flesh we call "the elite". We don't need them. THEY NEED US.
catigula 8mo ago
The problem is that it seems like wealthy people (capital owners) might be able to sustain the economy between themselves, which is basically what we're seeing.
- citrin_ru 8mo ago
  Looks like this is their plan but it's too early to say if it's a good plan.
  - catigula 8mo ago
    I think it's a good plan. You don't really need pleb laborers and consumer practices when you can just have automated laborers and patrician goods.
    - georgemcbay 8mo ago
      Whether or not it is a good plan depends upon how much faith they have in their doomsday bunkers and robot armies to protect them from the masses during the transition. "Every society is three meals away from chaos"
citrin_ru 8mo ago
On one hand richest top 1% own 30% of the total US wealth (and services/goods for the rich is a booming sector) but on other hand their wealth depends on a fully functioning economy. If 99% of population will be excluded form the economy top 1% will not be able to keep their current wealth either (even if they still be comparatively better off).
- xhrpost 8mo ago
  I don't see how the rich don't understand this. Guess they just think it won't happen to them and they'll be smart enough to cash out of America and go elsewhere before everyone else looses.
  - giraffe_lady 8mo ago
    Would you rather be a billionaire in a world of millionaires, or a millionaire in a world of penniless peasants? What we're seeing now is the billionaires' answer to this question.
  - ceejayoz 8mo ago
    They think the robots will soon be good enough to replace the human workers. Including the security roles that ensure the unemployed workers don't forcefully express their dismay at being redundant.
    - FrustratedMonky 8mo ago
      It seems like we are long way from robots building robots. So they need humans. Maybe the last people with jobs will be building that first generation of robots that still need humans.
      - ceejayoz 8mo ago
        > It seems like we are long way from robots building robots. I think it's very possible some of these folks have convinced themselves otherwise, and have largely eliminated the folks who'd say "you fucking idiot, no" from their lives over the decades.
darth_avocado 8mo ago
> What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? I joked with my manager when we were having a conversation about everyone being asked to use more AI, as an obvious precursor to keeping fewer employees to do the same amount of work: the end state of AI will be an AI manager having career conversations with the AI employee, discussing raises and bonuses.
- techjamie 8mo ago
  The ironic part really is that the average middle management job is probably among the more simple jobs you can automate away with AI at scale. Tell it your metrics, your targets, and other relevant info, and it can feed directions down to employees at scale.
  - Henchman21 8mo ago
    I don't buy this at all. There's significantly more to management than tracking and hitting metrics. You have to actually do the hard part of interacting with people and understanding their needs and so on within the context of work. I'm sorry, but vomiting up another bulleted list is NOT management. Its giving orders and then culling the % that don't comply. Wildly different things.
    - darth_avocado 8mo ago
      > You have to actually do the hard part of interacting with people and understanding their needs and so on within the context of work. Which is why it’s surprising that management is salivating at the idea of replacing employees and expecting 1 employee to do the work of 10 with the help of AI agents. If the value you bring is to manage people, you shouldn’t be happy at the idea of fewer people having jobs.
      - JambalayaJimbo 8mo ago
        Management is salivating because their jobs are hard to automate, so they stand to benefit from not having to pay employees as much.
cortesoft 8mo ago
> What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? Thus nobody buying anything. It could be possible to have high GDP with low paychecks… it basically means the entire economy mostly consists of the wealthy few buying and selling things to each other. It is easy to see how that could happen if more things become automated. You could imagine a world where there are only two people who own anything, and the entire economic productivity is generated by robots owned by those two people creating things and selling them to the other person, who uses those things for their robots to work with. You could produce tons and tons of things with no workers, and the GDP would keep growing. Of course, the high GDP doesn’t mean everyone is fed and sheltered. Having a functioning and growing economic market is required for capitalism to serve its purpose of providing for the citizens, but it isn’t the ONLY requirement. If the form capitalism takes as we move into the future is one that stops providing for enough of its citizens, it won’t be able to sustain itself. I think there are things we can do to shift our capitalism to do a better job of providing for everyone, but there are a lot of forces fighting against that.
- Terr_ 8mo ago
  > It could be possible to have high GDP with low paychecks… it basically means the entire economy mostly consists of the wealthy few buying and selling things to each other. A similar thing happens when people talk about "total debt" in an economy. I like to bring up the scenario of 3 people trading a shiny rock around in a circle. Each time seller doubles the price and agrees to defer payment. In this way, three kids can spend recess at school running the nation's average household debt to near-infinity! There are a few flavors of GDP calculation, but I expect it could yield some similarly odd results. In both cases, the map is not the territory, and the metric is indirect/imperfect.
- nine_k 8mo ago
  Capitalism works due to the "free market" which maps a large number of producers to a large number of consumers in an efficient way. When the market ceases to be sufficiently free, capitalism starts to falter. It may be regulation, it may be monopoly, it may be monopsony, it may be dysfunction of the judiciary system that fails to protect property rights, etc. A system of only two parties trading the entire economic output of a country would be utterly un-capitalist, more like two kings trading in products of their kingdoms. No doubt that any social institutes would have been subjugated by these two parties.
burnt-resistor 8mo ago
Power law distribution that becomes even more exaggerated. Billions and billions of poor people in borderline favelas spending every dime on food, housing, security, and distractions from misery. The Middle Ages all over again but with more technology and a few individuals relatively richer than Mansa Musa. When the food/water runs out on one or more continents from a precarious supply chain, expect massive, desperate migrations that haven't been seen in history perhaps. Perhaps rhyming with the Late Bronze Age collapse.

butterbomb 8mo ago

> What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? I’m suspecting something like Soylent Green, but perhaps with more proactive action taken to free up resources by removal of masses who are no longer producing enough value to justify their expenses. Following up, I believe eventually it will all be replaced by something much more resembling feudal power. Where bound servants provide service labor in exchange for protection/survival. Something like fuedalism but without the agricultural focus of manorialism.

Henchman21 8mo ago
> but perhaps with more proactive action taken to free up resources by removal of masses who are no longer producing enough value to justify their expenses. How bout we remove the heads of the wealthy and hoist them on petards outside their former dwellings instead? We don't need to justify the removal of these cancerous lumps of flesh we call "the elite". We don't need them. THEY NEED US.

catigula 8mo ago

The problem is that it seems like wealthy people (capital owners) might be able to sustain the economy between themselves, which is basically what we're seeing.

citrin_ru 8mo ago
Looks like this is their plan but it's too early to say if it's a good plan.
- catigula 8mo ago
  I think it's a good plan. You don't really need pleb laborers and consumer practices when you can just have automated laborers and patrician goods.
  - georgemcbay 8mo ago
    Whether or not it is a good plan depends upon how much faith they have in their doomsday bunkers and robot armies to protect them from the masses during the transition. "Every society is three meals away from chaos"

citrin_ru 8mo ago

On one hand richest top 1% own 30% of the total US wealth (and services/goods for the rich is a booming sector) but on other hand their wealth depends on a fully functioning economy. If 99% of population will be excluded form the economy top 1% will not be able to keep their current wealth either (even if they still be comparatively better off).

xhrpost 8mo ago
I don't see how the rich don't understand this. Guess they just think it won't happen to them and they'll be smart enough to cash out of America and go elsewhere before everyone else looses.
- giraffe_lady 8mo ago
  Would you rather be a billionaire in a world of millionaires, or a millionaire in a world of penniless peasants? What we're seeing now is the billionaires' answer to this question.
- ceejayoz 8mo ago
  They think the robots will soon be good enough to replace the human workers. Including the security roles that ensure the unemployed workers don't forcefully express their dismay at being redundant.
  - FrustratedMonky 8mo ago
    It seems like we are long way from robots building robots. So they need humans. Maybe the last people with jobs will be building that first generation of robots that still need humans.
    - ceejayoz 8mo ago
      > It seems like we are long way from robots building robots. I think it's very possible some of these folks have convinced themselves otherwise, and have largely eliminated the folks who'd say "you fucking idiot, no" from their lives over the decades.

darth_avocado 8mo ago

> What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? I joked with my manager when we were having a conversation about everyone being asked to use more AI, as an obvious precursor to keeping fewer employees to do the same amount of work: the end state of AI will be an AI manager having career conversations with the AI employee, discussing raises and bonuses.

techjamie 8mo ago
The ironic part really is that the average middle management job is probably among the more simple jobs you can automate away with AI at scale. Tell it your metrics, your targets, and other relevant info, and it can feed directions down to employees at scale.
- Henchman21 8mo ago
  I don't buy this at all. There's significantly more to management than tracking and hitting metrics. You have to actually do the hard part of interacting with people and understanding their needs and so on within the context of work. I'm sorry, but vomiting up another bulleted list is NOT management. Its giving orders and then culling the % that don't comply. Wildly different things.
  - darth_avocado 8mo ago
    > You have to actually do the hard part of interacting with people and understanding their needs and so on within the context of work. Which is why it’s surprising that management is salivating at the idea of replacing employees and expecting 1 employee to do the work of 10 with the help of AI agents. If the value you bring is to manage people, you shouldn’t be happy at the idea of fewer people having jobs.
    - JambalayaJimbo 8mo ago
      Management is salivating because their jobs are hard to automate, so they stand to benefit from not having to pay employees as much.

cortesoft 8mo ago

> What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? Thus nobody buying anything. It could be possible to have high GDP with low paychecks… it basically means the entire economy mostly consists of the wealthy few buying and selling things to each other. It is easy to see how that could happen if more things become automated. You could imagine a world where there are only two people who own anything, and the entire economic productivity is generated by robots owned by those two people creating things and selling them to the other person, who uses those things for their robots to work with. You could produce tons and tons of things with no workers, and the GDP would keep growing. Of course, the high GDP doesn’t mean everyone is fed and sheltered. Having a functioning and growing economic market is required for capitalism to serve its purpose of providing for the citizens, but it isn’t the ONLY requirement. If the form capitalism takes as we move into the future is one that stops providing for enough of its citizens, it won’t be able to sustain itself. I think there are things we can do to shift our capitalism to do a better job of providing for everyone, but there are a lot of forces fighting against that.

Terr_ 8mo ago
> It could be possible to have high GDP with low paychecks… it basically means the entire economy mostly consists of the wealthy few buying and selling things to each other. A similar thing happens when people talk about "total debt" in an economy. I like to bring up the scenario of 3 people trading a shiny rock around in a circle. Each time seller doubles the price and agrees to defer payment. In this way, three kids can spend recess at school running the nation's average household debt to near-infinity! There are a few flavors of GDP calculation, but I expect it could yield some similarly odd results. In both cases, the map is not the territory, and the metric is indirect/imperfect.
nine_k 8mo ago
Capitalism works due to the "free market" which maps a large number of producers to a large number of consumers in an efficient way. When the market ceases to be sufficiently free, capitalism starts to falter. It may be regulation, it may be monopoly, it may be monopsony, it may be dysfunction of the judiciary system that fails to protect property rights, etc. A system of only two parties trading the entire economic output of a country would be utterly un-capitalist, more like two kings trading in products of their kingdoms. No doubt that any social institutes would have been subjugated by these two parties.

burnt-resistor 8mo ago

Power law distribution that becomes even more exaggerated. Billions and billions of poor people in borderline favelas spending every dime on food, housing, security, and distractions from misery. The Middle Ages all over again but with more technology and a few individuals relatively richer than Mansa Musa. When the food/water runs out on one or more continents from a precarious supply chain, expect massive, desperate migrations that haven't been seen in history perhaps. Perhaps rhyming with the Late Bronze Age collapse.