> Who will buy the phones when no one is paid to produce them? The cars? The food and the clothes?
Other wealthy people. I knew someone in the yacht-building business who would say "If you want a business that will last, sell to rich people--they're the ones who have money." We are very quickly moving towards a world where the economic activity (earning + spending + producing) of the median person is insignificant next to the activity of the very rich. There are individuals who have more wealth than the GDP of entire countries.
We're bifurcating into a society like the movie Elysium: A relatively small number of wealthy people who matter to the economy, and a huge number scraping by day to day whose economic activity amounts to a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.
Tell that to the Pierce-Arrow company: makers of the first official cars for the white house, but they didn't survive cash flow problems from the great depression. Meanwhile, Ford survives.
Wealthy people would buy hundreds of millions of different phones? I strongly doubt it. Luxurious electronics for very rich people is usually something like iphone with diamonds covered back. This solves nothing and creates zero innovations.
As it stands right now, the common people having phones is what justifies investment in the cellular infrastructure. Without that investment, wealthy people can have plenty of phones but no service.
Is it realistic to think that the poors will start their own economy servicing each other? I'm sure there would be chaos and violence for a period but eventually it seems like the path upward would be a whole new economic system for that 98%. This system could even make use of the automation offered by AI.
> A relatively small number of wealthy people who matter to the economy, and a huge number scraping by day to day whose economic activity amounts to a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.
Wealth =/= spending, and definitely doesn't equal consumption.
Elon Musk might have more wealth than 1,000,000 US households, but he doesnt eat 3 million meals a day, drive a million cars, or sleep in a million houses.
I would be very interested in seeing the breakdown of consumption instead of wealth, as competition for goods and services produced is where disparity has tangible impact.
However, the productivity of workers in relation to capital is a valid concern for their ability claim the goods produced.
Other wealthy people. I knew someone in the yacht-building business who would say "If you want a business that will last, sell to rich people--they're the ones who have money." We are very quickly moving towards a world where the economic activity (earning + spending + producing) of the median person is insignificant next to the activity of the very rich. There are individuals who have more wealth than the GDP of entire countries.
We're bifurcating into a society like the movie Elysium: A relatively small number of wealthy people who matter to the economy, and a huge number scraping by day to day whose economic activity amounts to a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.