this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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It's wealth inequality. Capital accumulates capital, and it actually means something because wealth is control, and things like housing that determine control over people's lives are forms of wealth that get concentrated away from regular people along with everything else.
IMO two main things need to happen:
Oh but they actively took our paychecks too. This wasn't just government welfare for the wealthy and the stock market. When they fired Janet because they only needed one worker instead of two thanks to new software? They didn't pay Bob extra. That's wealth just sucked up into the Executive and Shareholder realm. Then to add salt to the wound of doing two jobs they give Bob a December raise below inflation. (because of course there is still actually more that Bob has to do, the software didn't fix everything.) So now they get Janet's pay and the extra revenue they denied Bob, because of course their prices damn sure went up in step with inflation.
This kind of fuckery has resulted in an estimated upwards transfer of around 47 Trillion dollars.
The thing I don't like with that kind of argument is that it is inherently anti efficiency and anti progress. We don't want jobs to be done in the most inefficient way just so that a lot of people can be paid to do them that way. We want them to be done efficiently and then everyone gets fed,... anyway because society values people over wealth.
It is not inherently anti-efficiency or anyi-progress. It is pointing out how those things have been corrupted by those in charge. In a more perfect world, Janet and Bob just work less hours due to the software while retaining their pay.