It has already been shown that most of the wealthy make money off of themselves, with less then 30% of their income coming from the industry. The rest is gained through various taxes and investments. If McDonald's, Catapillar, and Shell were to drop off the face of the earth, things would be shaken up, people would lose money, people would gain money, but at the end of the day the majority of rich would still be in the top 1%, and only have lost 30% of total income. Now look at how the top earning businesses last year are all "Basic needs" type stuff. Makes sense that the essentials of life earn the most, right. There is a reason that shelter, food, and entertainment were pretty much a basic right for most serf's even in the middle ages.
But, what about a society where people need these basic rights, but cant provide anything back? Well since high unemployment is good for investment earnings, causes fewer births and high unemployment raises the mortality rate this will create a situation where a declining population will actually be earning the elite MORE money, despite the lower value of everyday goods. Now,this effect is not very noticable becuase even though people die, jobs are continually growing, even to the point where there are too many high requirement jobs to be fulfilled.
Automation changes this though. Before the industrial revolution unemployment was almost nonexistant. after the IR it became a thing, alas not a very big problem. Now automation has created a Long term class of unemployed. No matter how much technology advanced in the past there was always a market for human intelligence to cull and use these technologies to produce more. The argument that it will create more jobs, just different jobs, is fundamentally flawed. It supposes that these machines will need someone to do the thinking for them. Even though bulldozers mean less people can do more work, it still needs someone to direct it. The way that automation is going is going to negate this effect. The machines will be managed by machines, who will manage themelves from their protocols more or less. This is without the event of AI creation too, at any rate. Like with bulldozers less people can do more work, but there is only job loss. Job creation is all automated. a smaller and smaller number of people will be needed to maintain the status quota as we figure out how to automate the jobs of the people who are doing the automating, or involved with it in any way henceforth.
This brings me to my last point - The inevitable outcome of large scale declining populations for the betterment of the wealthy. For the rich to stay rich a balance has to be struck. Every member of society who isn't contributing to their wealth is deterring it. With no need for cheap human labor there will be large portions of people with no money, no contributions. They will not be able to support the economy in any way, only deter from it. As I stated, this will increase the mortality rate and decline the birth rate. with no reason to increase human life, the population will decline naturally, as in survival of the fittest. this will continue until the equilibrium is reached where the rich have enough of the lower class to support them to the fullest without detracting. Since job loss is occurring all the time with automation though, this decline will be continuous. Thank you, and i think that about sums this up.
TL;DR - I encourage you to read it, but...
1.The rich can only profit if the productive vs. unproductive is at equilibrium
2.A population that declines until it reaches equilibrium will be good for profits
3.Automation will (eventually) eliminate job growth and promote job decay
4.Society will be thrown into perpetual decline to continue the status quot
If you read through this then thank you very much, i sincerely appreciate it :) if you have any thoughts then please feel free to comment and i will do my best to play devils advocate, and i am sure we will both learn something in the process!
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[–] no1113 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
"Shall"? How about "always had".
[–] mojo4567 [S] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
yup ever since agriculture :/ anyways it was just a play on "the meek shall inherit the earth"
[–] no1113 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
Heck. Ever since our creation - whenever (however) that was.
But I see what you meant.
[–] faun 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Technology amplifies rifts between haves and the domimant majority of everyone else. Eventually these divides will lead to the long, ugly, and painful collapse of civilization until populations of have nots are low enough not to threaten the wealthy who will continue fighting amongst themselves for any remaining scraps of money or security as natural resource shortages increase. Overall, the only way I see out of this planet's current dilemma is a change in values which probably won't come easy since many people, myself imcluded, are usually pretty stubborn anyways.
[–] CarlosShyamalan 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
If in the future every work will be automated, and the burgoise wont distribute the produced goods for free, then there will necessary be a revolution. In this case socialism will solve all of the problems by taking away the means of production and giving them to the control of an AI that designs the mathematically perfect distribution of food and shelter to those who need it.
In the past, when the industrial revolution came, in every country there were either reforms or open rebellions and revolutions, that severly crippled the factory owners (seriously we think its bad today? It was way worse in the european monarchies without any securities or benefits whatsoever).
[–] mojo4567 [S] ago
Yes, i fully agree. a very astute point. This does merely label what would happen if we continued at current trajectory, however i think as long as it will benefit the rich to keep the current system going, to decrese population, then it will stay. revolutions merely change who is on top (most times).
[–] jervybingly ago
I think the elite will manage the depopulation and I think the plans and tech are ready to go at any time they decide.
[–] k_digi ago (edited ago)
Incorrect, on a number of levels:
The context of "automation" is put into the current framework, this is your error in thinking.
automation will allow for decentralized self sufficiency.
once the first automated micro "farm" starts production, then it will provide excess.
then so on and so forth, the only simple requirements are freedom of certain keys, I.e enrgy etc.
automation won't occur without these.
the current framework wont fit an automation system.
[–] mojo4567 [S] ago (edited ago)
okay i will give you the point that as of now, certain barriers like energy, space, and cost will deter automation, you are right on that, our current world will not support the type of automation i am talking of. The future however, is anyones guess. However
Decentralized self sufficiency, yes, but the whole point of capitalism is that more people lose so that some can win (even if the ratio is 49.99 to 50.01), which means that in some shape or form there will be costs associated with "self sufficiency" (i know seems like an oxymoron, but its not) that will be an expense, even if that expense is less than a penny.
Cost of food does not impact birth rates noticeably, the biggest indicators are expenses (cost of living) and Income (unemployment)
therefore, in a capitalist society with expenses and income, it does not matter how self sufficient the citizens are, there will still be a natural decline in population
Now as a redditor in the comments below stated, all of this is true only if we continue with the current system. once communism or socialism takes over, then these statements are no longer true, and everything you said above is true.
This argument was all based on what i synthesized from the excerpts you gave me however. If you ment something entirely diffrent then what i took away please say so :)
EDIT: Also, i do agree though that in some form decentralization is the only way to go from here. I am an anarcho socialist though, so that is not a dirty word :)
[–] k_digi ago
Yeah well, "social system" will pretty much have less meaning in the future as well.
we will function under "configuration systems"
its' pretty simple look at it like "VOAT" there is more freedom here than "Reddit" more decentralization of info what do you call "VOAT" ?
well take that basic principal and expand it into a general configuration system, "socialism" doesn't really work like that, there will really be no "central distibution" in decentralization there might be a "network" and some "organization" but that's about it.
[–] jervybingly ago
The meek shall inherit the earth, if that's all right with you.
[–] Mr_Sir ago
I don't have high hopes for this, but to prevent this we need to move away from a monetary system. No more money! What needs to be done, is move a resource base economy. Basically, what the Zeitgeist film serious advocates
[–] k_digi 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Zeitgeist is close, however the path is decentralized systems not some "super computer"
[–] Mr_Sir ago
Fair enough. Zeitgeist is not perfect, nor is any system. Consider this, with the degree in which technology affects our everyday lives (as we have this conversation over the Internet)and international commerce, how could we ever have a true decentralized system? More so, one that can't be so easily corrupted with the use of power through monetary power. I agree a super computer raises eyes brows, but the ideology behind the idea seems more appealing to me.