Hacker News Reader

It was logical to provide child welfare when children stopped working because parents loved kids. Similarly, most welfare systems work because economies run on labour, thus the owners of capital are motivated to appease the labourers. In a post labour world, what exactly motivates teh welfare?

View on HN

Fear of violent revolution?

Isn’t the end goal of any successful state ultimately to hold and protect a monopoly on violence, which is more “efficient” and less violent to the participants?

Sadly I believe fear of violent revolution would be an old fashioned concept in a post work world. Why would the state (run by oligarchs) simply deploy troops (sorry did I say troops, i meant killer robots) to squash any violent rebellion? Once the people are not needed, the power balance will shift drastically.

Consumers are needed for capitalism to work.

But not everyone needs to be a consumer. I could see the end result of all of this wealth consolidation being that the top 1% both own everything and are the only consumers. Rich people selling things to each other.

I once worked with a founder whose side business was building and selling yachts. Why yachts? If you asked him, he'd say because yacht buyers are the ones who have money.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com