…if all labour were to be replaced by autonomous robots. Prices would drop to zero since companies aren’t making or losing money anymore, and money would become worthless.

  • GrammarPolice@lemmy.worldOP
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    18 hours ago

    I’m not an economist, but I’ll try to answer you. Yes, land and resources still retain intrinsic usefulness and scarcity, but monetary value depends on a functioning market sustained by human labor and consumption; without those, capitalism loses its underlying mechanism of value creation. For example:

    Imagine an AI controlled agricultural system. Robots cultivate land, harvest crops deliver food, etc, all without human labor. If no humans are employed, there are no wages being paid. Without wages, there’s no one with money to buy the food. The owners of the automated farms could produce endlessly, but there would be no market demand in the traditional sense

    The system would have to transform to some sort of technofeudalism or socialism.