Raw LLM Responses

Technological unemployment or the 'machine problem' has been understood since the early 1800s, since economist David Ricardo wrote Chapter 31 ("On Machinery") in his famous economic Principles text, and since the Luddites rebelled against machines taking away jobs from textile workers by sabotaging machines. The common thread, or through-line, across centuries of development of capitalist modes of production is class struggle. Class warfare has always been waged from above by the power elite and by the capitalist owners, bosses, managers, and those who identify with the bosses and work against the interests of the working class. The power elite and the capitalist owners and bosses view the working class as inimical to their wealth because they refuse to acknowledge humanity. The power elite view the economic system as their own feudal and aristocratic domain. So, they perpetually seek to drive down wages and to lower or eliminate the cost of labor. Meanwhile, the working class needs jobs or income to survive. It's inevitable that technological unemployment will continue to eliminate jobs. This doesn't have to be a problem, necessarily, if government exists of, and for, the people. Unfortunately, too often, the working class turns their backs on politics. In so doing, the working class forfeits political clout. We must unite to defend our interests as workers and a working class. We could have an MMT-based job guarantee program. (Read economists L. Randall Wray, Mathew Forstater, Stephanie Kelton, et al.) A job guarantee program could end involuntary unemployment as we know it. And, if we ever reach Star Trek levels of automation, where only ten percent of the population is needed to operate the machinery or technology, then the rest of the population can be liberated to focus on taking care of their families, communities, and environment. Money can become obsolete, as everything would be basically free. But that's only with a humane government. Capitalist modes of production have tended to prefer the concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands. Concentration of wealth and power is diametrically opposed to a democratic society or democratic governance. So, depending on how we decide----as a society---to influence government, technological unemployment will lead to the liberation of humanity, like in Star Trek. Or it will lead to mass unemployment, poverty, criminalization of the poor, and slavery, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism. We can choose what we want to contribute to: liberation through collective, principled struggle, organizing labor and society for the benefit of the people, or contribute to neofeudalism and widening income inequality and increased poverty and homelessness through apathy and inaction.