Blaming this on the tech workers, or the automation technologies themselves, misses the true source of the problem: the business owners who take the profit all for themselves, rather than allowing it to be enjoyed by all.
The promise of automation is that people should be able to work less and still be paid enough to live comfortably.
When the incentives aligned. Pretty sure during the 90+% tax rate era offered insane incentives to reinvest into the business and employees.
I don't think we need to get rid of capitalism. The controls around capitalism like taxes, social safety nets, could use a little fine tuning.
Capitalism at its core is still pretty efficient compared to everything else. The hyper efficiency needs to not throw the baby (regular folks) out with the bath water(cutting expenses), that’s all.
While there have certainly always been greedy people, and greedy owners, there has been a very visible shift within my lifetime (~40 years).
Previously, the general rule was that a business was there to produce a good or provide a service, and the profit they made (if any) was the reward for that. There were some businesses that acted much more greedy, but overall it was clear that this was how business worked.
Now, the rule is much more that a business is there to make as much profit as possible, and the good they produce or service they provide is purely a means to that end—and, in many cases, largely an undesirable one. Again, there are still some businesses that operate based on the older philosophy, but overall this is the prevailing atmosphere.
This is what I would describe as the dividing line between "capitalism" and "late-stage capitalism".
As for an end to capitalism:
"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings."
And even more so profit from the operating company is not a goal. It is profit from market valuation of the company. Which when you really think about obviously only can lead to some sort of failure or catastrophe.
Ofc, HN with VC funded companies love this model. Generate "wealth" from essentially imagination. Throw more money in and number goes up, end goal find someone to dump whole thing on. Be it public or some established company that found extractive niche.
I find lot less wrong in traditional capitalism. Start making something, sell it for profit, build a factory to sell more. Then use proceeds and possibly loans to build bigger factory. Rinse and repeat. At least you are generating possibly something useful for eveyone and getting money as part of process is not unreasonable.
The promise of automation is that people should be able to work less and still be paid enough to live comfortably.