I think the big danger is that we have an 80% that are living hand to mouth and the main way to make money off of them is through their numbers, and jacking prices on life essentials to the absolute limit they can bear.
Then we have a 20% who are wealthier than the bottom 80% and these folks actually program the robots and run our economic system, and are paid well enough to buy the fancy products, etc. This 20% buy double what the 80% do or more and constitute a whole economy unto themselves.
The big game is convincing the 80% they can move into this 20% somehow. This keeps them from revolt, along with the fact that the 20% control the media and so on and work against wide messaging of even the existence of the problem let alone a revolutionary solution. Of course the absolute top fraction of that 20% have more wealth than everyone else combined and exert the most influence, largely through the 20% professional class that they allow to live in relative luxury.
Right now that top fractional 1% are asking themselves “hm, could AI shrink the 20% to 15%? That would improve our profit margins and shrink the only class of people with enough power to really disturb us.” Because the “we are the 99%!” crowd are really 20%ers most of the time. 80%ers are consumed by their immediate challenges of survival and the ill side effects of poverty AND above all the hustle to move into the 20%.
It’s an interesting comparison with pre-revolution. France where the 1% lived on the backs of an agrarian 99%. With the introduction of that magic 20%, the 1% are vastly more wealthy than if they lived off of pure agrarian peasantry. And they’ve created a buffer between them and the bottom tier that largely manages the masses for them, pacifying it with the promise of mobility. I don’t think anyone consciously plans this shit but if they did they’d be high fiving themselves for their absolute genius.
eldebryn@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Depressing bit of the day: I don’t have the source with me right now but there was a claim on youtube that the top 1% make up for like half of the consumer market in the USA.
Half of everything sold in dollars is done by the ultra rich. Everyone else is basically irrelevant and driven to extinction under capitalism, if that is accurate.
danzabia@infosec.pub 5 days ago
A quick google says 15-20%, which makes sense. Maybe the top 10% could comprise 50% of consumer spending, perhaps.
Merlin@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
Iirc it’s the top 10%.
I still wonder, how would the ultra rich or even the top 10% stay rich if the middle and lower classes are all unemployed. Won’t it “trickle up” to the richer people.
Probably most of Amazon revenue comes from the bottom 90%. I mean. There’s only so much a single individual needs to buy. Same goes for subscriptions, cars, clothes. Etc.
Maybe they’re buying luxury products now and the price makes it represent so much of the overall economy. But won’t they also get affected when their company loses their “bottom” customers. Less sales will affect the stock market, which will likely reduce their purchase power as well.
And I really think it will affect the big players. More unemployed people will cause less people to sign up for Amazon prime. Less people subscribing to Netflix will hurt Netflix which in place will require less resources and that affect Amazon at the end of the day when they cut down on aws expenses.
This is a simple and likely naive idea from me but I really think that everything is still very connected. Even the ai replacing stuff. Most of their money right now comes from selling it to businesses. Not all businesses cater for the top 10%. So that means more business going broke and less ai being sold as well.
eldebryn@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Very possible yes, it’s been a awhile since I saw it.
3abas@lemmy.world 5 days ago
They’re not buying 50% of the junk on Amazon, they’re buying yachts and supercars.
eldebryn@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Those studies do not refer to item volume, they refer to monetary value.
If a business can earn more by selling 5 cars worth half a million each per year, instead of trying to sell 20 or even 30 Cars under 40k to average people their entire business model will shift to cater to billionaires and multi millionaires.
The bulk of average people are becoming irrelevant to the current capitalist market, that’s the point.
Hominine@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Interesting, I’ve recently heard the automotive market is starting to cater to the $70k+ crowd and so this tracks somewhat. That said, the 1% accounting for 50% of consumption still sounds incredible.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 days ago
thats pretty much vegas has been doing for the past decade, only catering to well off people in the hopes they can stay the same.
urandom@lemmy.world 5 days ago
1% is not just the ultra-rich. It likely includes a lot of people on lemmy right now
BakerBagel@midwest.social 5 days ago
The top 1% of earners in the US made over $1 million last year. I doubt any lemmy users are in that category.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 days ago
yea its people who are upper middle class to, lawyers, doctors, tech professionals,etc. almost everyone else earning 100k or less.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 5 days ago
Yeah, I’ve seen it from a few different videos, including one citing a 2005 Citibank report pointing out that this would become a major trend.
Wealth inequality is bad enough that I’ve even seen some marketing professionals mention it as a possible problem for some companies.