3 ms·

Technology has been doing this for decades. I think a lot of our "K shaped economy" discourse is about the bifurcation of the upper middle class creating downwa

by rayiner 2mo ago

Technology has been doing this for decades. I think a lot of our "K shaped economy" discourse is about the bifurcation of the upper middle class creating downwardly mobile educated young people. Nobody in my wife's immediate family finished college. She and all of her cousins are quite indisputably better off than their parents. My father in law drove a forklift at a soup factory. My sister in law is studying to be a nurse. It's a big step up. But the "white collar" middle class has become very winner-take-all. To use an example from my field, if your dad was a partner at a regional law firm, that path probably isn't open to you. Technology enabled consolidation and scaling, so you don't need lawyers in every city in the U.S. to be able to handle legal work there. Lawyers at national firms serving Wall Street clients are making more money than ever, but the drop below that has become pretty precipitous. The same has happened to small businesses all over the country competing with Amazon, etc. It's had a huge impact on the petit bourgeoisie. Of course, this is economically efficient. Nobody is going to give up Amazon same-day-delivery so that some local small business owner's kids can live better than the median person.

abnercoimbre 2mo ago
> It's had a huge impact on the petit bourgeoisie. I always heard it as "petty" bourgeoisie and was a bit confused. Now I get it.
matheusmoreira 2mo ago
Will it ever stop, though? I mean, why even try if social mobility has been destroyed? If we're the permanent underclass now, then there's no point in struggling against any of this.
- tuesdaynight 2mo ago
  The class consciousness from middle class lately has been funny to me. We always had poor people that were "permanent underclass" and middle class didn't care. They were not afraid of revolution or whatever we are afraid now. If the bad scenario happens and 99% of the people becomes irrelevant to the economy, everybody will live their life's worried about basic necessities and smart hardworking people will be richer because your background or where you live or grew up doesn't matter. Life is not fair. We should accept that AI companies and billionaires deserve to be aristocrats. They worked hard to create these conditions. In the end, it will trickle-down (this one I partly agree, irony aside)
  - matheusmoreira 2mo ago
    > We always had poor people that were "permanent underclass" I don't believe this at all. Social mobility definitely existed. It was at least possible to educate oneself and rise in society. Maybe the effort required wasn't equal for everybody, but it sure as hell wasn't impossible, because I've personally seen it happen. That is fundamentally different from this supposedly K shaped economy world where it is literally impossible to rise. Education and talent don't matter anymore. It looks like the possible futures are either a post scarcity society or a cyberpunk dystopia.
    - tuesdaynight 2mo ago
      > I don't believe this at all. Social mobility definitely existed. It was at least possible to educate oneself and rise in society. Maybe the effort required wasn't equal for everybody, but it sure as hell wasn't impossible, because I've personally seen it happen. If you believe that, nothing will change much. It will still be possible, just the effort and luck required will be way bigger for the middle class to become rich. That's sad, but life is not fair and we are not entitled to social mobility the same way we are not entitled to housing, food and leisure. If the cyberpunk dystopia happens, the trillionaires will live in the moon or Mars, and we will live here, maybe with shittier lifes, but that's on us. If we want to avoid that, we just need to become billionaires as well. Sadly, I'm too lazy for that, so I accept that it will never happen to me. I accepted that I will be "permanent underclass", because I don't see a reason for post scarcity to happen.
ychnd 2mo ago
I think you agree with Marx ;) > The petite bourgeoise sink[s] gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production.

by rayiner 2mo ago

abnercoimbre 2mo ago

> It's had a huge impact on the petit bourgeoisie. I always heard it as "petty" bourgeoisie and was a bit confused. Now I get it.

matheusmoreira 2mo ago

Will it ever stop, though? I mean, why even try if social mobility has been destroyed? If we're the permanent underclass now, then there's no point in struggling against any of this.

tuesdaynight 2mo ago
The class consciousness from middle class lately has been funny to me. We always had poor people that were "permanent underclass" and middle class didn't care. They were not afraid of revolution or whatever we are afraid now. If the bad scenario happens and 99% of the people becomes irrelevant to the economy, everybody will live their life's worried about basic necessities and smart hardworking people will be richer because your background or where you live or grew up doesn't matter. Life is not fair. We should accept that AI companies and billionaires deserve to be aristocrats. They worked hard to create these conditions. In the end, it will trickle-down (this one I partly agree, irony aside)
- matheusmoreira 2mo ago
  > We always had poor people that were "permanent underclass" I don't believe this at all. Social mobility definitely existed. It was at least possible to educate oneself and rise in society. Maybe the effort required wasn't equal for everybody, but it sure as hell wasn't impossible, because I've personally seen it happen. That is fundamentally different from this supposedly K shaped economy world where it is literally impossible to rise. Education and talent don't matter anymore. It looks like the possible futures are either a post scarcity society or a cyberpunk dystopia.
  - tuesdaynight 2mo ago
    > I don't believe this at all. Social mobility definitely existed. It was at least possible to educate oneself and rise in society. Maybe the effort required wasn't equal for everybody, but it sure as hell wasn't impossible, because I've personally seen it happen. If you believe that, nothing will change much. It will still be possible, just the effort and luck required will be way bigger for the middle class to become rich. That's sad, but life is not fair and we are not entitled to social mobility the same way we are not entitled to housing, food and leisure. If the cyberpunk dystopia happens, the trillionaires will live in the moon or Mars, and we will live here, maybe with shittier lifes, but that's on us. If we want to avoid that, we just need to become billionaires as well. Sadly, I'm too lazy for that, so I accept that it will never happen to me. I accepted that I will be "permanent underclass", because I don't see a reason for post scarcity to happen.

ychnd 2mo ago

I think you agree with Marx ;) > The petite bourgeoise sink[s] gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production.