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Isn't that the end result of capitalism? To optimize returns on capital. It says nothing about labor or workers.

• eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Well yes, but there were previously variously reasons to either sincerely believe, or argue-against for ideological reasons, the notion that capitalism must impoverish everyone who isn't a capitalist. As it is, I think the Coming Model is going to have to be some extended form of Danish-style "Flexicurity": a market economy with the means of production under mixed control (nationalization of common assets but no seizing private wealth), near-complete market flexibility, but a system of social insurances and social dividends that share out some portion of the total wealth and prevent actual poverty and destitution for everyone. Then we'll see what people will actually create under such a model. It could well end up like the late '40s and the '50s-'60s: with a crisis resolved, demand is liberated, what had been financial wealth is converted into a real standard-of-living rise, and whole loads of new products and professions open up that can only exist because the working class is now secure and prosperous enough to support them.
• afterburner 14y ago
  I thought capitalism was centered around labour providing value and being rewarded accordingly? I'm not sure myself. Although the other inputs to production are land and capital goods, the latter of which could I suppose be interpreted as "the robots that will take care of everything".