isakrynell :
There is a fatal flaw in this thinking, and it comes from not understanding what production and distribution are for or how the economy functions.
Companies think they exist to make money, but that's a by-product. They exist to facilitate the production and distribution of useful products. Corporations pay workers to produce products, then sell those products back to workers, generating the money needed to pay workers to produce more products. That closes the circle.
You cannot make money by cutting labour if everyone is doing it, because someone still has to buy the products. It breaks the circle, and what you gain on one side, you lose on the other. Money is, at its core, hours of human labour. Not all labour is the same or has the same value, but labour is the fundamental commodity money represents. If there is no labour, there is no money.
The result wouldn't be 99% unemployment. It would be mass bankruptcy long before we ever got there.
If AGI is around the corner, which I doubt, by the way, then it will end capitalism. If AGI can make everything we need and distribute it at no cost, why would we need corporations or businesses? Why would we give them money? Why would we need money?
2026-09-09 14:33:58