> "Wow, for a period of time we were able to get more jobs to a significantly large amount of the population due to innovation. How fortunate."
Here's the thing: This is good for the economy and human development overall.
What we're witnessing right now is the opposite: Mega corps trying to control almost every industry, and shifting the economic and social landscape from a capitalistic society to a neo-feudalistic one.
The socioeconomic implications of this shift will be something humanity has never experienced before, since the endgame is to automate everything. If we get to that point, either the government seizes the means of production (I don't agree with that since this is communism) and distributes wealth, or the government charges nearly a 97% on taxes (capital gains, etc but taxation is basically theft, hehe) and we start living in a "Jetsons"-like society, or we get a feudalistic society (hopefully I'm dead wrong).
I think you're dramatically underestimating the power of corporations in previous eras. The Gilded Era and the Reagan-Clinton years had their own versions of super-extreme corporate power, with long-lasting repercussions. If anything, we're seeing a relative rise in the power of governments, exemplified by things like EU bureaucracy, growing protectionism, and the right-wing backlash autocracies all over the world.
Here's the thing: This is good for the economy and human development overall.
What we're witnessing right now is the opposite: Mega corps trying to control almost every industry, and shifting the economic and social landscape from a capitalistic society to a neo-feudalistic one.
The socioeconomic implications of this shift will be something humanity has never experienced before, since the endgame is to automate everything. If we get to that point, either the government seizes the means of production (I don't agree with that since this is communism) and distributes wealth, or the government charges nearly a 97% on taxes (capital gains, etc but taxation is basically theft, hehe) and we start living in a "Jetsons"-like society, or we get a feudalistic society (hopefully I'm dead wrong).
Is there an in-between?