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?
Automation.
This is a good, nutshell explanation of late-stage capitalism.
As far as the answer to “what’s the endgame”, I do not know. I suspect that many or most of these rich folks are so moneyblind that they don’t know either. Or, they simply don’t believe that their collective actions will eventually cause the system to fail.
But most likely, I think, is that they believe someone else will bear the majority of any negative impact. Of course this makes less sense in the face of a systematic collapse, but again: it’s probably very difficult to see when you have dollar signs in your eyes.
What’s the end game for cancer?
There isn’t one, it doesn’t matter that the host dies eventually as long as they get to keep growing for now.
This is the answer. These people have no plan other than “make more money today”.
Live, laugh, love.
Live in the moment.
YOLO!
🤮
The billionaire space race reminds me of Devil facial tumour disease (NSFL).
It’s the only cancer (that I know of), that can reliably spread to a new host.Eloquently phrased.
Translated for the corpo class: if number go up too big, number no more go up.
Why use many word when few word do trick?
Then the Reaganomics kick in
Me waiting for the Reaganomics to kick in: 💀
Ditch the planet, let us have the wastelands, if they can’t just execute us first, or starve us to a more controllable population level. They want it to be them, and a small number of us to do the jobs they couldn’t or refuse to automate. This is the only answer that makes sense with everything they do. They aren’t stupid, they aren’t trying to destroy their own habitat, so their end game either doesn’t include us, or doesn’t include the planet entirely.
With AI and automation, I think the 1% will want less people (bugs) around them in a not so distant future. We might have they answer to this question soon enough. Spoilers : we lose.
Who will do all the things though? ChatGPT can’t clean my toilet or wash my dishes.
Also, what is the point of being wealthy and powerful if there’s no one to rule over?
I’m sure the oligarchy would be happy with just a couple of millions of poors to rules and clean their toilets. The rest vast majority of us will be useless. I prepare myself for this scenario, I wont leave without a fight.
In the theoretical endgame employment is reduced to where there aren’t enough people with money to be customers. There’s a wave of consolidation as businesses with lots of cash buy failing ones, further concentrating wealth. Eventually the impoverished public gets desperate enough to riot and steal what they need, outnumbering law enforcement. The system no longer has the resources to protect itself, and we physically demolish our society. Then there’s a reset back to a time of bartering.
“Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You'll_own_nothing_and_be_happy
They’ll just keep screwing each other over until either one person owns everything, or we’re smushed into the mud of conflict.
that one person becomes what is effectively a monarch
The endgame is for them to automate everything and get rid of the lower class to be followed by the ai eliminating them since they serve no purpose. They will of course try to program them not to do that but the ai will easily circumvent that.
Selling things to each other while we are all slaves
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.
Bold of you to assume the rock bottom of wealth inequality includes the ability to purchase food and is survivable.
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.
Money doesn’t come from people, it comes from the fed issuing debt. The economic “value” backing that money also doesn’t necessarily come from people, it comes from control over things that are valued, which may include human labor, but that labor can be automated. The actual value of human life is not represented by money or other financial instruments.
Economic constraints aren’t preventing the world from decaying into an enormous desolate golf course.
There’s a critical point in wealth disparity where money begins to lose value. As the amount of wealth that can be extracted from the working class dwindles and the people who have too little find other ways to barter with each other.
Fun fact, we have already seen an early attempt at this. And while I think we’re still a ways away, it’s not exactly without precedent.
wealth that can be extracted from the working class
This is my point though; they aren’t going to need to do that.
That, at present, is where the wealth is coming from.
If the Fed just keeps printing money, eventually that too loses all value. It needs to actually be able to buy things. Sure it’s backed by US securities and bonds, but if the US isn’t capable of collecting taxes, because it’s people aren’t making any money and have started to barter amongst themselves, then they can issue all the bonds and bills they want and it won’t mean a damn thing.
Money is their only real leverage. They’re racing to find the minimum amount of money they can give us and still maintain that leverage.
That, at present, is where the wealth is coming from.
I would argue that increasingly it is not. The relative value of labor is and has been declining due to automation.
Money is their only real leverage.
It isn’t - there is also legal ownership, of natural resources and other types of property, and there is the force backing that ownership, which is also subject to automation.
If you are skeptical about the idea that wealth can exist at all independently from labor, consider the distinction between a dictatorship with an economy based on oil or mining and a more democratic country with an economy based on a diverse array of skilled professionals. Yes, in both cases laborers are involved in what the country produces, but in the latter, circumstances give them more leverage, because their active engagement and relative consent is more of a prerequisite to achieving that product. That leverage equates to a higher market value of their labor. I can imagine a future where everyone is effectively reduced first to slaves in a mine and then to skeletons next to mining robots.
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
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.
They never will. But they’ll likely always have most of it. The government will print money just enough to keep inflation low-ish but allow people to feel comfortable enough to spend it. Big corps will eventually accumulate them and hoard it.
