[xster]

Right (and slightly orthogonal, back to the mode of production topic), I think we can treat it in 2 ways:

1- We recognize this Bonds villain plan, we stop it and go back to our happy pastural life and everyone lives happily ever after; or

2- We grant ourselves this new productivity as a reward that frees us from labor (but in the process have to answer the hard question of how to deal with going from solving the conflict between the 1% and the 99% to solving the conflict between the 0.0001% and the 99.9999%)

[sprafa]

The thing is this beautiful new freedom from labour is also freeing us from subsistence. I see it all over London where I am - there’s now a permanent underclass with no chance of getting up in the social ladder because they are doing jobs such as cleaning, maintenance, baristas... stuff that requires no specialised skills but most importantly will never allow you to pay for your children’s way into higher education. Thus I fear we are permanently removing 30-40% and increasing numbers from the social ladder.

If we keep automating everything and capital gets to own the cloud processing power that allows for it, and we “rent everything” as some people are predicting, what the hell earning power will anyone have unless they work in AI or programming new things to automate?

[Decathect]

First, I don't think the rich are cartoonishly evil, Machiavellian, or even particularly interesting. It doesn't take superhuman skill or sociopathy to live off other people's labor. They're just trapped in a game they can't help but win and are by definition incapable of walking away from.

Second, the idea that there is a 'we' encompassing the 1% and 99% or some future and even more fractional segmentation is unrealistic. There's already been millennia of slavery and serfdom: let's not repeat them by trusting that our seat at the table is somehow ordained and not the result of centuries of people fighting from chattel to power on our behalf.

If we can't achieve even the most basic, obvious reforms (a universal healthcare system, a livable wage, an end to global warming in our lifetimes) given the current power structure, then contributing to the further entrenchment of the wealthy isn't just counterproductive, it's suicidal.