You can think even simpler.

As one individual, you don't really owe anything to anyone. The only time you owe something is in social terms, when you borrow it in your name, or promise reward for work. And even then, people try to get out of paying things back, but in most cases, the courts, the police or the payees themselves get them to do it anyway.

If you own some land, and suddenly, you can get work on it done without giving almost anything in return (except electrical power), you don't owe anything to anyone. And if you can defend that land effectively, you don't physically need anyone else.

This concept of the social contract, where some abstract group of rich owes something to an abstract group of workers, is actually just a series of consequences that happened to a bunch of individuals when debts weren't paid. But if you're rich, the consequences are no longer an issue, and you're not motivated by some other thing (morals or empathy, for example), the social contract breaks down in your favor.

It's a good thing to remind oneself that social contracts don't maintain themselves, we need to maintain them.

▲ 9rx 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> This concept of the social contract, where some abstract group of rich owes something to an abstract group of workers, is actually just a series of consequences that happened to a bunch of individuals when debts weren't paid.

The debt to the workers almost never goes unpaid. The workers quickly call the debt to get food and shelter in return.

More often the workers fail to repay their debts to the rich. This is how you get entities like Berkshire Hathaway or Apple sitting on mountains of money. That money is the symbol of the loans that were extended to the workers, with the workers not being able to offer equivalent value in return.

Even among the rich, holding money is unusual, though. They usually like to call the debt for something of real value (e.g. land) as well.

▲ TomasBM 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think we're referring to different debts.

Your original comment said:

   > at some point in the future the rich have to pay that work back with something of equal value [e.g. food, gadgets, etc.].

And this is true in the abstract sense that some rich need to provide the goods, or the money that workers can exchange for said goods, or they'll face consequences. In other words, they better pay their debt, because history has shown that bad things happen - to specific rich individuals or across the society - when debts to workers aren't paid. This is one large part of the social contract.

So, I agree with you there. Then, when you said:

   > But if in the new world the rich have AI to do the work they want done, the jobless masses can simply be cut out of the picture.

To this, I provide the caveat that any rich individual could at any point in history cut out any working individual (let alone non-workers), as long as they could get away with it. The only reason most didn't get away with it was because no one else could do the work, and/or they couldn't protect themselves against eventual retaliation. But most did get away with providing what we today consider to be unfair compensation.

So, if any rich individual gets that equation back in their favor, no one will uphold the social contract (i.e., balance the equation) unless the rest of us do it.

For this, you don't need AGI or robots that can do anything a human can, or a large pool of non-workers. You just need reliable autonomous weapons to coerce most work, or enough automation to get work done when coercion fails; humans can do the rest.

   > The workers quickly call the debt to get food and shelter in return.

This is different from my point. As far as that one rich individual is concerned, their debt to the workers stops when he gives them the money, regardless if it's US dollars or Disney dollars. It's up to the state or another rich individual to accept the money for the goods & services. So, that's the other debt, i.e., that goods will be provided for the money.

I'm not as worried about that other debt, where some money becomes worthless, or the state stops enforcing its currency, or people stop accepting money for goods. I'm more worried about the former debt, where someone can renege or just pay much less, because rich and state interests align. So, even if the state takes over with UBI, and you continue working, you'll just have less and less overall, and there'll be no real leverage against it.

	▲	9rx 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> As far as that one rich individual is concerned, their debt to the workers stops when he gives them the money Only if it was the employer that originally extended the debt and it is the worker repaying the debt with their labor. Otherwise the employer still has a debt outstanding. The IOUs are distributed, so, practically speaking, that debt may be to another entity (e.g. a bank), but it really makes no difference how many other people get involved. No matter how you slice it, the math is all the same.

▲ 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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