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Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where 'machines can make all the food and stuff' isn't a bad idea
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Yeah but my point is, more people may not mean more profits in the future. Depends on what can be automated.
So basically im saying there are two ways to increase profits, either reduce costs (salaries) or increase sales. It's possible that in the future, the equation becomes that it's possible to reduce costs very very much by reducing employees to almost nothing, but someone needs to buy the products for it to be a profit, I agree.
It just seems so primitive what we are doing now. We should build societies where humans are happy, but capitalism is the opposite, and other systems seem to suck also.
Those star trek societies are only possible because they can generate items from thin air...
The "other systems" historically have been sabotaged. For example, Cuba had basically no ability to trade externally because the US wanted them destroyed. They've been fairly successful despite this though.
For another example, the Guatemala coup occurred when a new democracy formed and elected a leftist who destributed land to the poor and implemented a minimum wage. The United Fruit Company (Chiquita now) was using the land and cheap labor for their banana empire, so they lobbied to have the US overthrow them. They did, and Guatemala ended up with a dictatorship, which also genocided the natives while the US did nothing to stop them.
There are plenty of other options. Capitalists are just scared of them, so they push the myth they always fail. Instead they fail because they kill them.
Yeah it makes sense. They want to protect what they have built now, all based on interest rates and everyone borrowing money they have to pay back their entire lives by working.