Without scarcity, artificial or not, the ruling class loses their grip on power. Capital will manufacture scarcity to whatever degree it is capable of, because without it there’s even less justification for owners to exist at the top of this neat little hierarchy they desperately cling to. They need to have their gated fortresses and their toys, cleanly separated from the rest of us undesirables.

They’ll use AI to bolster the security of their bunkers while drying up the rivers to run them. The whole while, they’ll blame any economic decline on the claim that “nobody wants to work anymore” after having automated all the jobs and offering no replacements.

I’d like to believe an alternative is possible. Perhaps we can come together and push for a better future, but that doesn’t seem to be the way things are going currently.