Comment by vrganj

Let's first finish the critique, then we can use its conclusions to talk about what it would actually take to get us out of this mess.

Capitalism has always been a tension between capitalists, who want maximum return on capital and workers, who want pesky things like a living wage, sick leave or safe work conditions.

For the longest time, the only power labor has had to get those things was the power of collective bargaining. No agreement with your workers meant no production happened.

AI threatens to disturb this delicate balance that made things kinda-sorta work for a while.

No more dependence on labor means the capital accumulation flywheel will go crazy. Capital can buy compute can generate capital. Now, once you have a ton of capital, you might start thinking: Hmmm, I wonder if I can use this to tilt the rules of the game in my favor. Wonder which politicians could change some regulations in exchange for a hefty "donation". And so the regulatory capture begins.

In other words, the end state of things as they are is: existing capitalists get converted to near-feudal lords (which is why they're so excited about the prospect!), while the existing working class loses their only leverage to extract an existence.

All solutionist approaches just slightly slow this incentive loop down or make it more marketable, but none change the core mechanism at play.

Now, with this critique in mind, what do we actually do about it?

We won't be able to stop AI from taking over more and more labor jobs, and we shouldn't even try to. But that's not really the problem anyways, the problem is that with the current ownership structure, the only ones really benefiting from AI productivity are they already-owning class.

That is where we have a lever. The only way out of this dystopian path, and into something more appealing, is communal ownership of the means of production. This doesn't have to mean everyone's laptop, this needs to be measured and scaled of course, but as an example, large-scale data centers should not be allowed to be privately controlled.

Now, which mechanism we choose here is up for debate. Maybe government ownership? Maybe worker-owned coops? Maybe something else entirely?

Lastly, how do we get there? Historically, there's been two schools of thought: The electoral and the revolutionary approach. I think both have their merits, but I actually think they best work together.

Think of the Bismarckian example: Why was the conservative German chancellor the one to introduce the German social safety net? To stave off a credible threat of revolution.

I think that while I don't really love the idea of a revolution, the ruling class loves it even less, because historically they are the ones that end up beheaded. That's why I see revolutionary movements as a good way to extract concessions, because they don't need to actually go through with it as long as they're threatening enough.