Is full capitalism sustainable?

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426653478

Assume you are in full control of a country in which all tasks are carried out by machines (meaning humans don't need to do shit), how do you run that country? For instance, farming is automated so there is enough food, but how do you make sure everyone gets enough food?

Isn't the best solution to print money and distribute it among everyone, so they can purchase whatever product or service they need or want? Collect the money from their purchases and again redistribute it among them?

Obviously we are not there yet, but we are getting closer and closer to that point by each passing day. Isn't that why we have economies moving from manufacturing based to service based to asset-based to ...
 
Quote from 426653478:

Assume you are in full control of a country in which all tasks are carried out by machines...how do you make sure everyone gets enough food?
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Distributing food is a task. By the assumption of your question, the machines will figure it out.
 
Quote from Random.Capital:

Distributing food is a task. By the assumption of your question, the machines will figure it out.
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so let's say they do figure it out, how will they do it, that is the question, what is better than to print money and hand it to people so they can choose what type of food they want to purchase?
 
Joel Rifkin wrote The End of Work and covers this. Though I have not read it, I am somewhat familiar with it.

My view:

Other civilizations dealt with their sharp jumps in technology and productivity and resultant lack of work differently.

Rome built arenas and handed out cheap grain from colonies.

Egypt put people to work in a monuments program-pyramids. Contrary to popular belief, most if not many, were paid laborers, not slaves.

Both examples were funded by the state's surpluses.

The US handles it differently. We have a vast defense/war industry and with Central Banking, a FIRE economy whose sustainability based on ever increasing debtloads and asset valuations may be proving to be unsustainable. What do we do next? That's the question.
 
Quote from achilles28:

I'm not sure I see the point of this... ?
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given the fact that machines are faster and stronger than humans and some of them are smarter than most humans, and looking at the process the world is going through, which is automation of tasks, the only job that remains for most people is consumption. 100% capitalism can't make sure those at the bottom of the social pyramid (which consists of the majority) are consuming at the right rate, but socialism can, by taxing those who own the means of production, or those who engineer the tools of production, and using that tax money to create pseudo jobs, like jobs at the TSA (Thousands Standing Around), those at the higher levels of the food chain could not sustain their position without the constant human consumption specially without those at the bottom because the bottom make up the majority

on the other hand 100% socialism isn't possible, but that is not the topic of this thread, and the only thing I wanted to point to is that when you consider advanced technology and tools, specially the fact that some of these machines are more advanced than the average person, you see that you can't implement full capitalism to run a country

maybe that is why america is like only 20% capitalist with a growing domination of socialism over our lives
 
U can have full capitalism, but not full employment. The surplus will create jobs in the military/prison industrial complex. Implementation is already in effect, the rest is merely a matter of scale.
 
Humans will be needed to create and program the machines. If machines acquire fully sentient self replicating AI, then it's either the Matrix, Terminator, or "I, Robot", pick ur choice.
 
Quote from ARealGannTrader:

U can have full capitalism, but not full employment. The surplus will create jobs in the military/prison industrial complex. Implementation is already in effect, the rest is merely a matter of scale.
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I get what you are saying, but the idea is that you don't want to kill off all the useless humans, you want to let most of them live, consume and continue their measly pathetic lives, their constant consumption is more power to those at the top of the pyramid, plus most countries are big ass prisons anyways
 
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