I dug out my old copy of The Communist Manifesto. You’re right that Marks & Engels merely create an aesthetic, but not a substantive replacement for capitalism.
The authors begin by stating “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” and conclude their manifesto by saying that the Communists “openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!”
They wish to bring about their revolution by the means of ten proposed principles. Which include: abolition of private property, abolition of inheritance, centralization of credit in the hands of the state, and more.
Before we can even consider these, earlier in the manifesto they claim that “the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers.” But with AI, the value of wage-labor is decreasing. When the proletariat are no longer the base/foundation of the capitalist machine, they’re stripped of all their political power.
This got me thinking today: what use is there for a redundant class of people that do not, and cannot, meaningfully contribute to the accelerating techno-economy? What happens to the Malawi people that have practically zero chance of breaking out of their chronostratified environment? Well, they’ll probably still exist. They just won’t have the opportunity to join the upper echelons of society when socioeconomic mobility grinds to a halt. Globalism as the preeminent narrative of the 21st century—that strives to raise the tide for all boats—may disintegrate as wealthy, isolated groups of people dominate the economy and win all the money.
So the Malawi people won’t go away. They’ll still be there. And it’s possible they keep living their lives as is. And so will I.
I’ve noticed that much of my confidence/self-esteem is derived from my place in my local status hierarchy. I’m better than my friends at pickleball and that makes me feel good. But being chronically online always makes me feel depressed because there is always someone displaying their life who’s more impressive/richer/more successful than me. So the locally optimal solution may be to dig my head in the sand and enjoy/contribute to my local community, and the Malawi people can do the same, while we all collectively ignore the techno-elite who are busy building mega space yachts to explore the galaxy.
It seems more likely to me that the Malawi people and everyone else will be killed at some point.
Currently the system still has to consider popular opinion to some degree. Killing all the Malavi people would not be efficient right now. When that incentive disappears enough, I would expect everyone else to get eliminated (All of this assumes incentive aligned AI which I wouldn’t expect). This goes in the direction the author was mentioning that the reason for moral progress is more about which societal structures are efficient not actual “moral” progress”.
If competition between humans persists I would expect the other last humans to disappear as well having to transfer all their power to survive the competition.
I dug out my old copy of The Communist Manifesto. You’re right that Marks & Engels merely create an aesthetic, but not a substantive replacement for capitalism.
The authors begin by stating “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” and conclude their manifesto by saying that the Communists “openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!”
They wish to bring about their revolution by the means of ten proposed principles. Which include: abolition of private property, abolition of inheritance, centralization of credit in the hands of the state, and more.
Before we can even consider these, earlier in the manifesto they claim that “the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers.” But with AI, the value of wage-labor is decreasing. When the proletariat are no longer the base/foundation of the capitalist machine, they’re stripped of all their political power.
This got me thinking today: what use is there for a redundant class of people that do not, and cannot, meaningfully contribute to the accelerating techno-economy? What happens to the Malawi people that have practically zero chance of breaking out of their chronostratified environment? Well, they’ll probably still exist. They just won’t have the opportunity to join the upper echelons of society when socioeconomic mobility grinds to a halt. Globalism as the preeminent narrative of the 21st century—that strives to raise the tide for all boats—may disintegrate as wealthy, isolated groups of people dominate the economy and win all the money.
So the Malawi people won’t go away. They’ll still be there. And it’s possible they keep living their lives as is. And so will I.
I’ve noticed that much of my confidence/self-esteem is derived from my place in my local status hierarchy. I’m better than my friends at pickleball and that makes me feel good. But being chronically online always makes me feel depressed because there is always someone displaying their life who’s more impressive/richer/more successful than me. So the locally optimal solution may be to dig my head in the sand and enjoy/contribute to my local community, and the Malawi people can do the same, while we all collectively ignore the techno-elite who are busy building mega space yachts to explore the galaxy.
It seems more likely to me that the Malawi people and everyone else will be killed at some point.
Currently the system still has to consider popular opinion to some degree. Killing all the Malavi people would not be efficient right now. When that incentive disappears enough, I would expect everyone else to get eliminated (All of this assumes incentive aligned AI which I wouldn’t expect). This goes in the direction the author was mentioning that the reason for moral progress is more about which societal structures are efficient not actual “moral” progress”.
If competition between humans persists I would expect the other last humans to disappear as well having to transfer all their power to survive the competition.