Surviving Capitalism (Not) : “Who will own the robots?”

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, September 12, 2016

“Who will own the robots?”

Click here to access article by economist David Ruccio from Occasional Links & Commentary.

Ruccio comments on a recent article published in a research journal of the International Monetary Fund, and reaches this conclusion:

The assumption about the unequal distribution of capital income is, in fact, the appropriate one for the existing set of economic institutions. As the authors understand, the only way to change their dystopian prognosis is to fundamentally change the distribution of capital income.

And, if we’re going to be honest, the only way to do that is to eliminate the private ownership of the robots and the rest of capital.