|
|
|
|
|
|
by scottlocklin
2750 days ago
|
|
|
Yep; this future is a direct rentier society. It's a decent projection from where we are now, where the entire society is built on a mountain of debt. It's also horrifying the vision of serfs paying a hamster wheel subscription model for the basics of life. Whether funded by debt or subscription models; we're just simulating prosperity while living as serfs. " With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting" |
|
|
But the best case is worth considering too:
Every person who could be a talented crane operator can rent a crane, can borrow the cash to rent the crane, can rent an agent who can help them find crane gigs, can rent a trainer who can make sure they know what they need to and practice, can rent insurance to protect the whole venture from risk....
The ownership society tends towards stagnant labor ecosystems. Because owners want to be able to walk away from their assets and passively collect dividends from them, the social structure around those assets calcifies.
A 1000-fold increase in the kinds of things that can be hired would seem to give the actual laborers and managers the power to compete with their capital class “directors”. Even director is probably giving them too much credit because it implies some administrative labor. “Lord” is really the best word I can think of for what capital class people aspire to.
In a society where everything can be rented in a fine grained way, the capital class is no longer needed. In a truly robust rental market, margins would tend towards the cost of administration, so even the rentals themselves are only serving to support the wages of the renter-worker and the rental administrator-worker.