> I'd like to see serious engagement with the subject rather than dismissal of the current state It's not my realm of expertise, but from what I've gather

> I'd like to see serious engagement with the subject rather than dismissal of the current state It's not my realm of expertise, but from what I've gather the way capitalism works to maximize profit (price-cost). You achieve that by, maximizing the price or minimizing the cost or any combination of the two. If you think closely about it, replacing humans with cheaper, tireless, less error prone systems (be that robots or robot-like humans), you score a double whammy. You maximize production AND reduce the costs. > It's also interesting that circa the '30s, the capitalist/democratic system was also being tossed into the popular junkheap in favor of centralised/dictatorish systems You mean that after Great Depression (circa 1929.), people would considered an alternative system to the one that left them in crushing poverty? That doesn't strike me as interesting or surprising. It's like a man in debt going to a loan-shark out of desperation. What is interesting that around ~81 years after that episode, we have another.