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oldcreaker t1_j0pz973 wrote

This is end game capitalism - once you get rid of enough labor, there's no longer enough consumers to support the system and the whole thing dies.

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panguardian t1_j0q2e2c wrote

Yes, I think that is a fair conclusion. The system must change, but we don't know what it will change into. Tyranny or enlightenment. Then you add climate catastrophe into the mix...

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jep5680jep t1_j0qm8i5 wrote

It will default back to tyranny. Sadly always will.

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panguardian t1_j1130j9 wrote

I don't know about that. From what I have observed, revolution tends to lead to tyranny. Such as the Arab Spring, the Russian and French Revolutions, etc. But gradual effects through protest and using the existing democratic structure do have a positive long-term effect.

For example, the shift to the left in the UK during the 19th (the Tories ended up adopting Gladstone's position.) We might be beginning to see some kind of move to the left in US democratic policies because of long-term gradual pressure from Sanders and others like him.

Matched with protest and organization of labor, and gradual changes in favor of the majority can be gradually effected. Admittedly, we are entering unknown territory with automation. But then again, I don't know. Rome destabilized because the ruling classes imported slaves instead of paying its lower classes. So that didn't turn out too well.

Admittedly, looking at that historical, it is looking iffy. If the wealthy don't need labor, then what leverage do the majority have?

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RandomPhail t1_j0r8xpw wrote

The concept of money would just have to be deemphasized

People who DO still work (probably as AI and robot repairers/mechanics) would get some extra money to do fun stuff, but nobody would need money to simply survive anymore—ideally anyway.

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linuxluser t1_j0tu6z2 wrote

Post-capitalism becomes whatever we want the world to look like. Free from the constraints of markets and the growth imperative, we no longer must shape our activities around making somebody else's line go up. That means we can use AI for human needs and wants. That's what we were always dreaming of!

While "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism", if we're headed to the end of capitalism regardless, the time for dreaming of a better world is now. Thinking cooperatively not competitively and remembering that no matter the system, we are still all connected anyway, goes a long way. Our differences aren't really too different.

To me, this is what fully-automated luxury Communism will be. I look forward to it. But how bloody it'll be to get there will depend entirely on whether we see the keepers of the old system (the few that think themselves better than the rest of us) the enemy or our neighbors (because they don't look/believe/behave like we want, etc).

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shawnwasim t1_j0q9ir6 wrote

But wouldnt there be more capital focus on creative things like art?

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LizardWizard444 t1_j0r5cg6 wrote

People usually only do art when they're not starving, homeless or dehydrated. According to capitalism you have to pay for those things and if you can't your too poor to be worth letting exist. So no that won't happen unless we change to something that isn't capitalism.

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ericivar t1_j0qxqzf wrote

Ah. Somebody else that wants to watch the world burn.

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oldcreaker t1_j0r2zas wrote

Just because you think something will happen doesn't mean you want it to happen. I just don't see "and they all lived happily ever after" as very realistic.

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LizardWizard444 t1_j0r7ltg wrote

I'm pretty sure almost nobody literally wants to see the world burn i think he's just stating some simple facts and deducing the likely outcome.

-capitalism generally needs people and businesses to pay for they're continued existence

-the businessed like automation because it often means paying the electric bill month to month instead of a paying for a whole person to come do the same job often worse than the automatic machine can.

-automation permanently removed a job from the work force.

-if all of the above are true eventually you get a problem where people can't pay for they're existence or anything else for that matter and so the businesses can't continue existing because no one's buying anything from them and the whole thing stalls out.

These are all decently well known and proven facts. So even if you managed to get a third party with no stake in any of this, informed them of the facts they'd probably go with the guy watching the world burn itself over the guy accusing him of wanting blind destruction.

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indysingleguy t1_j0td17y wrote

Automation has been slowly degrading the middle class for 50 years. The middle class basically is no more.

I was in a higher end grocery store yesterday and all but 2 checkouts were self scan. This store is charging more and making the customers ring themselves out. Its evil genius.

So jobs are being eliminated now at both ends of the middle class through automation.

I dont see how it is sustainable.

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LizardWizard444 t1_j0tdbl7 wrote

Yup I'd recon if 20% of current jobs get removed than the crash comes and everything sucks.

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