> What stops “the poor” from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own
There can be a large class of poor, but it still be cheaper for a poor person to get their goods & services (as they can) from the corporations with the automation to provide them for a fraction of the cost, and of higher quality, than someone without capital can.
When poor people get money, they want whatever technology and services the middle class or above have. They want to move up.
They don’t want to buy handmade arts & crafts from each other.
The Industrial Revolution took resources. You can’t recreate that while poor.
They are not going to recreate farming either. They won’t have the land, water rights, etc
> There can be a large class of poor, but it still be cheaper for a poor person to get their goods & services (as they can) from the corporations with the automation to provide them for a fraction of the cost, and of higher quality, than someone without capital can.
But why would the corporations (or rather, their owners) even bother to do that, once robots are producing everything? And what would the poor buy those robot-made goods and services with? For money to work as universal medium, it needs to circulate - but if everything that the rich consume is made by robots that the rich also own, and it's cheaper than a human's living wage, then all trade would happen in that circle, and money used for that would never leave that part of the economy. So people outside of it simply wouldn't have anything useful to buy goods with.
Or, to put it in another way - any wealth transfer from the haves to the have-nots in such an arrangement would be pure welfare. Which, given a socioeconomic system that does not encourage altruism, to put it mildly, would only be done to the extent that is necessary to prevent a torches and pitchforks situation. And even that would only be the case until making killer drone swarms is a cheaper way to prevent any would-be uprisings than bread and circuses - and I think that, thanks to the likes of Anduril, we're already well on the way there.
> And what would the poor buy those robot-made goods and services with?
Nothing or very little.
My point is that when labor is handled by automation, the poor won’t be able to create their own economy, even though they have nothing to offer and are excluded from the economy of the rich.
It sounds like we have the same understanding.
Even if a poor person (in this scenario) does get any money somehow, or anything of tradable value, it will go right back to the rich.
There can be a large class of poor, but it still be cheaper for a poor person to get their goods & services (as they can) from the corporations with the automation to provide them for a fraction of the cost, and of higher quality, than someone without capital can.
When poor people get money, they want whatever technology and services the middle class or above have. They want to move up.
They don’t want to buy handmade arts & crafts from each other.
The Industrial Revolution took resources. You can’t recreate that while poor.
They are not going to recreate farming either. They won’t have the land, water rights, etc
And hunting & gathering isn’t a fallback.