cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19046336
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What does capitalism do when there is nothing left to take? It keeps taking
We’re gonna find out as soon as AI, automation, and robotics are more cost efficient at performing most functions than humans.
My expectation is genocide/mass murder, as there are somewhere between 10-100x more people than the planets resources can sustain long term, at a developed world rate of consumption and the current level of technological efficiency/advancement.
Okay but how does AI/Automation/etc. cause a mass murder if the preoccupying assumption of automation is, quite literally, increase of technological efficiency and advancement?
That’s a classic one. All the money flows to the top. It leaves the majority of the population without jobs or money. If there are no serious welfare programs, people get very angry and hungry. Humanity is hardwired to start to revolt, riot and plunder in the face of large inequalities and with the astronomic levels it will be massive. The Hamptons and other places like it will be burned to the ground. It’ll be very ugly.
Who do you think will control the kill bots? It’ll be the ultra wealthy who lead the remaining governments and corporations. Populations have historically revolted under severe economic stress, even when unemployment reaches 30-50%, and capitalism requires people receiving money in exchange for labor, so they can pay for goods and services; at a certain level of automation/unemployment that cyclical system shuts down. Robots don’t get paid, and they don’t buy goods or services.
When that happens the ultra wealthy will no longer have any need for the unemployed majority. They will have a means to suppress them (kill bots, wealth, political power), and numerous ecological/environmental reasons to cull the population down to a more manageable, sustainable size.
It’s not exclusive to it, but I used the term intentionally to point out the how the capitalists target the “fat” and also the “muscle” in the system to create very expensive ketones.
If you’re suggesting that a ketosis state doesn’t produce autophagy, maybe check your sources.
if you want to implement unpopular policies, authoritarian regime is the way
The depressing thing is that fascists are popular enough to gain power. The populist pose, some scapegoating of minorities, and a dash of lying about their goals, is enough to win over many voters, and in a first-past-the-post system it doesn’t matter if the majority of the people don’t like them.
That’s not necessarily true, many supposedly democratic regimes consistently pass unpopular policy and don’t pass popular policy. E.g. welfare state cuts to expenditure in education, healthcare and pensions in post-2008 EU, or the lack of progressive policy in USA healthcare.
It’s precisely this ignoring of the popular will that turns people to fascism
Well of course it has, fascism is the end result of capitalism. Some would say it’s natural conclusion.
fascism is the end result of capitalism
I wonder what sort of echo chamber you must live in, in order to believe this
Fascist regimes generally came into existence in times of crisis, when economic elites, landowners and business owners feared that a revolution or uprising was imminent. Fascists allied themselves with the economic elites, promising to protect their social status and to suppress any potential socialist revolution.. Then Fascists allied themselves with the economic elites, promising to protect their social status and to suppress any potential socialist revolution. There’s more specifics here if you want them.
Fascist regimes generally came into existence in times of crisis
Too bad that modern capitalism produces wealth like no other system - the supposed resurgence of fascism never happened despite EU running capitalism for 79 years since the World War 2.
A lot of economists don’t listen to anything Joseph Stiglitz says, because he’s not from the Chicago school. Economics is so stupid.