Robot Overlords and Red Herrings

"The core of the argument is that agentic AI will replace human labor in most white-collar industries and will do so with dizzying speed. The consequent abrupt and massive job displacements will lead to crashes in property values and local tax bases, with devastating impacts on communities and much of the public sector."

"Mass unemployment will occur simultaneously with massive upward concentration of wealth (and therefore power) to those who own the technology, so the government won't be in a position to help matters much; it will have been sufficiently captured by those with means that everyone else will be reduced to spectators."

"Capital-intensive production relies on mass consumption to buy what it produces; displacing the workers (in this case, in favor of bots) will collapse aggregate demand. Marx called that a contradiction, though his solution left much to be desired. Keynes offered a solution to slack demand-deficit spending to 'prime the pump'-premised on the idea that recessions are brief and cyclical."

A recent blog post argues that agentic AI will replace human labor across most white-collar industries with unprecedented speed, triggering cascading economic collapse. Massive job displacement will simultaneously crash property values, local tax bases, and public sector funding while concentrating wealth among technology owners. This structural unemployment will destroy aggregate demand as millions lose purchasing power and those still employed hoard resources. The argument draws on Marx and Keynes, noting that capital-intensive production depends on mass consumption. However, unlike cyclical recessions addressed by Keynesian stimulus, AI-driven disruption represents permanent structural change requiring fundamentally different solutions than traditional economic interventions.

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