Capital in the 22nd Century

and of course, the link for the article; https://philiptrammell.substack.com/p/capital-in-the-22nd-century

Remember that thick book by Thomas Piketty everyone bought a decade ago but rarely finished? He famously argued that the rich naturally get richer faster than the economy grows, leading to an inequality spiral. For years, mainstream economists debunked him, pointing out that historically, when companies bought more machines, they actually had to pay workers more to use them. But Philip Trammell is now dropping a heavy counter-argument: Piketty was wrong about the past, but he is terrifyingly right about the future. We are moving into an era where the old economic safety valves are about to blow.

The technical core of this argument is about the relationship between capital (tools/AI) and labor (you). In the old days, these two were teammates; better tools made the teammate more valuable. Trammell argues that AI is breaking this partnership. Once machines become fully capable of doing the work without human supervision, they stop being tools and start being replacements. If this decoupling happens, the economic law that used to raise wages when technology improved will actually reverse.[1] Instead of trickling down, the value will stay trapped at the top with the people who own the hardware, potentially driving the value of human labor down to zero.

The gossip here is really about the "privatization of returns," and you can already see it happening. Trammell points out that the biggest gains in AI are happening in private companies that regular people can't invest in. While sovereign wealth funds and billionaires are buying early stakes in the next super-intelligence, your average retirement fund is locked out. If this theory holds, the 22nd century won't care how hard you work or how smart you are; it will only care if you were lucky enough to inherit a piece of the robot army. Expect this to fuel a massive debate on whether we need to tax robots or completely rethink ownership before it is too late.