Corporate culture is based on constant growth and ever increasing profit margins. Eventually they’ll amass so much of the wealth that most of the lower class won’t be able to purchase anything other than essentials like food.
No new cars, no tech gadgets, no fancy dinners, no vacations, no disposable income.
When we get there the economy collapses because there’s no money going into it.
The profits stop rolling in, unnecessary goods stop being produced, and the luxury goods producer’s shut down.
At this point the money they worked so hard to hoard becomes worthless because they can’t buy anything with it.
What’s the endgame for them if their current path takes them to a point where their assets are more or less worthless?
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There are 3 key necessities for UBI/freedom dividends:
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It redistributes power not wealth. Bad greed is oligarchy capturing your rulers. UBI weakens politicians discretion, because just paying everyone more cash instead of their corrupt ideas is “idiocracy proof”. Power redistributed to workers where everyone who wants a job gets 5 recruiter calls per day offering a better job. We all get greater power to say no to anything. Quality of life becomes exceptional without crimes of desperation, and the divisive hate that is easily manufactured from crime.
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Redistribution means massive economic growth and overall prosperity even as it all trickles up to make the rich richer. “Velocity of money” is the key economic concept, but as income trickles back up to workers and owners, it means that the rich have to invest more to take all of our money.
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The alternative is genocide. Oligarchy having all of the money and power, and AI/robotics to do work, means robocop detroit for Americans, and war on rest of the world to take their land. It doesn’t matter that far more wealth can be generated with more people to sell stuff to. The logic of pillaging America/world for oligarchs with ever decreasing tax rates on corporations and the rich means more relative wealth and power for the oligarchy and its political minions.
This 3rd point is similar to yours. Except its not just “This is America, if you don’t make money you’re a douchebag”, and the rich just give up on life, it’s “you need to be exterminated because you are useless to the rulership.”
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If all the billionaires in the world instantaneously ceased to exist, and all their money were evenly distributed to everyone on earth, you would get a one time payment of about $1,769. Then what?
With the exchange rates remaining intact? Many people would live a much better life.
We move on to the triple digit millionaires, and maybe the double digit millionaires too.
You’re forgetting that this money would exchange hands multiple times per year, per person. Expenses are revenues; we’re all connected.
But when some people put billions aside (in non tangible stuff like stocks), they’re effectively reducing the buying power of everyone else. Slowly but surely. They are a net negative just by their mere existence.
I see your point, but my point is that each time the money changes hands, more of it will bubble up into the coffers of newly minted billionaires.
It’s even better than that, because the massive inequality created by Capitalism has already got us to a state where the human population is going to collapse within the next few decades, even if climate change doesn’t do it first. Simply, most people never feel like they can afford to start a family during the years when they would have started one before. The oligarchs know this and are freaking out about birth rates now, but it’s already too late - can’t be King of the mountain if the mountain is only a hill.
There’s a solution for reducing population while increasing birthrates: war, pandemias and forced
inoculationsinseminations (physically or by peer pressure).Edit: I’m not an antivaxxer, that’s just idiotic. I’m talking antiabortion and religion.
Why would they do any of that when they could simply use HAARP to trigger a Mandela Effect and change reality though? Seems like hard work.
/s, right?
Right?
And I’m downvoted versus an actual anti-vaxxer? What a world.
Don’t forget banning abortion and birth control through moral and legal processes. Time to give birth to the next generation of disposable exploitation.
An economy where we all sit in a hoemless shelther watching the five rich guys sell the same five products to each other again and again
It’s probably something like the story within the story For the Benefit of Mankind by Liu Cixin.
The same as with all cancers unless it’s killed in time.
They will start a clone economy on different planets. Remember when we were cloning shit in the 90s? That. If people won’t make enough babies to continue to grow the population then they will take over.
Everyone here has written echoes of the same viewpoint: the wealthy got too greedy and so now the whole world will die as they stand and watch.
While I understand the allure of such narratives that paint a world falling into pieces at the hands of the ultra-wealthy, I think it’s worth exploring an alternate vision of late-stage capitalism. One where despite being grim, we avoid descending into a completely unrecognizable dystopia.
In this scenario, nearly the entire workforce is displaced by robotic and AI-driven automation, leading to a massive societal shift. With most traditional jobs gone, the public faces mass unemployment and widespread poverty. Outcry erupts as the majority falls below the poverty line. With nearly all jobs displaced, for most people only two options remain: attempt entrepreneurship or face unemployment.
Confronted with growing public unrest, governments reluctantly implement basic welfare measures such as small universal basic income or food stamps, providing just enough for people to get by. Meanwhile, the majority of global funding is redirected toward research and development, primarily powered by these new forms of automation. This fuels breakthroughs in production and technology, eventually driving down the cost of quality goods. Over time, even those relying on minimal welfare begin to see modest improvements in their quality of life.
Meanwhile, the wealth gap grows wider than ever. Billionaires, enriched by the automation economy, turn their attention to ambitious but arbitrary ventures like constructing moon bases, developing underwater cities, or investing in life-extension technologies. Occasionally, these projects destabilize society—whether through anti-competitive practices or efforts to sidestep government oversight—but as long as governments hold their ground (a non-trivial task), their effects on the majority remain limited.
What results is a fragile balance: a world with basic welfare programs supplying the masses, incremental technological progress, and a stark divide between the majority and the ultra-wealthy. It’s far from utopian, but it avoids outright collapse. As innovation continues, life gradually improves for everyone—even though the wealthiest always dictate the terms and reap the greatest rewards.
Yeah I’m not sure I can picture that world in light of recent events. Your scenario seems to treat human beings like they have foresight. Unfortunately, we have seen pretty unequivocally that this trait is rare. In fact the existence of this post stems from billions of people noticing the obvious fact: practically no one, not even the rich, seems able to care about what happens in the not-immediate future.
In a mildly sane world, I’d say you’re right about that being a possible path for history to take. But I’ve lost my ability to find the sanity in this world. Sorry, I know this sounds dramatic but it is what it is. I’d love to still be the commenter who’d reply to a comment like mine here to try and instill a bit of hope but…I’m not.
Hmm, if you’re interested in expanding further I’d love you to share more detail. What specifically in the scenario I proposed would require foresight?
I suppose you could say the government passing some form of increased welfare could require foresight but even that is primarily reactionary (a reaction to the public unrest from record rates of unemployment and poverty). If you look at the civilian unemployment rate, it’s quite low right now, around 5%. In the worst of times, it’s been 10-15% during which there were huge pushes for the government to step in (ie. covid relief / 2008 financial reforms). That makes me think that if we experienced sustained high (15%+) unemployment it’s quite reasonable to predict that there’d be enough pressure for the government to provide some significant form of relief.
If anything, my pessimism would stem from social unrest due to the polarization of media, the hyper optimization of content, and similar negative byproducts of capitalism plus advanced optimization. But I view these all as distinct problems separate from the problems discussed here (the economic conditions induced by late-stage capitalism).
The kind of foresight I meant is just seeing that something bad can happen but maybe it can be stopped. We’ve been sprinting toward climate catastrophe for decades now. There’s almost zero chance most of those in power don’t know they’re doing that.
Is there any precedent for any country on earth instituting a long term basic income program? I honestly think the pieces of shit in power in America as of this month would rather watch the entire world burn down than do something like that. Trump might prefer having his penis cut off than doing it. So yeah, even if there’s precedent for something like that, you need someone in power that employs logic more consistently than what we’ve seen for a while.
Money isn’t finite, that’s why billionaires and soon trillionaires exist. They couldn’t ( or literally had to be an emperor) when money had a closer relationship to reality or was gold. Anyways, because of the nature of our currency now, the size of their pile has zero effect on the size of your pile. “No new cars, no tech gadgets, no fancy dinners, no vacations, no disposable income.” not how it works. If you add up the 20 richest Americans, you get close to 2.7 trillion, which is the estimated amount of physical cash in circulation. None this shit is real. American national debut is 36 trillion. Ever saw an actual cash shortage? Like not a personal one, the money not existing to complete a transaction, like not being able to move cash you hold to another person because of lack of availability of signifiers? Not a thing anymore.
They don’t think about endgame. The life they live is one without consequence; they have no intention to start thinking ahead, that’d make them uncomfortable.
Also, this endgame is already manifesting. Remember all those headlines about millennials killing “X” industry? Less wealth in the working class for luxuries that previous generations would have enjoyed at the same age. Before long it’ll be not enough wealth for certain luxuries outright.
Let me introduce you to the wonderful concepts of feudalism and slavery.
You think that people have nothing to lose but their chains. They think people will have nothing to sell but their bodies.
There are steps in between. I think the next one will be company towns. Massive company buys a giant plot of land in the middle of nowhere. Builds a whole business complex there. Offices, manufacturing plant, shipping/ receiving infrastructure, etc. Then they build track housing around it, build a company-run grocery store, a private school completely funded by the business, etc. Invite in a bunch of familiar national chain restaurants, but make sure they’re all franchised, so they’re owned and operated by the company.
Then they recruit. They offer half decent wages. Nothing great, but they sell it to people by offering to pay for moving costs and massive discounts on company-owned houses.
These houses are brand new and waycheaper than a condo in the city! [pre-fab, low-cost bullshit that looks good but disintegrates in a couple years]
Come meet the neighbors! They also work for us, so you’ve got a lot in common! Built-in new friend group! [your boss also loves a block away and pays attention to your social life]
Your kids can go to school for free! [where we teach them to be good wage slaves for the next generation]
Soon, there will be an entire town 100% owned and run by the company. Wages will stagnate, prices will skyrocket. Workers will get in debt, all owed to the company. People will start to realize, but what the fuck are they gonna do? Company owns their mortgage, which is now under water. They’ve lost contact with all their old friends, because they live three hours outside the city and have had to work every Saturday for months.
Viola. Entire areas of wage slaves.
I can’t wait to be called on a Amazon’s Levy to give my life conquering some Microsoft’s chip factory.
You’re assuming a level of competence for rich people that is unfounded.
The line will infinitely approach 0 but never get there. That is what credit is for. The rich will gladly let you borrow their vast wealth to buy the cars and the homes, and in exchange you will be their indentured servant for life. Win Win, economy go brrrrrrr…
What
In short:
If the rich loan you money with interest (banks being the intermediary) they can make money by taking a percentage of the value you produce while also keeping consumer goods flowing. Its already been happening for decades and is how the super rich are able to exist for decades to come.
Slavery 2: It won’t matter if you’re black or white
🥚-xactly.
They’ll happily lend you money to keep buying stuff. So you end up in perpetual debt. It loops back to feudalism and serfdom in a deliciously ironic twist.
So what’s the way out, you propose?
