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No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world
Chainweasel @lemmy.world

What's the endgame when the rich have all the money?

Corporate culture is based on constant growth and ever increasing profit margins. Eventually they'll amass so much of the wealth that most of the lower class won't be able to purchase anything other than essentials like food.
No new cars, no tech gadgets, no fancy dinners, no vacations, no disposable income.
When we get there the economy collapses because there's no money going into it.
The profits stop rolling in, unnecessary goods stop being produced, and the luxury goods producer's shut down.
At this point the money they worked so hard to hoard becomes worthless because they can't buy anything with it.
What's the endgame for them if their current path takes them to a point where their assets are more or less worthless?

124 comments

  • They have to keep a lot of it circulating. As it zips around the economy, it is used to purchase capital, which soaks up the value of workers labor power by converting it into commodities, sells those commodities on a market for a higher price, and then returns profit to the "owners" of the capital. This is how the rich get and stay richer.

    Capitalism isn't neutral, the system creates the rich and poor and delivers the value of worker labor power to the rich owners. The rich can't control it any more than we can. They have their hand on the wheel through the state, which is just a mechanism that solves problems created by capitalism that can't be exploited for profits, to violence. But they're as ensnared by the system as we are. It robs them of their humanity the same it does ours.

    We don't overthrow capitalism to punish the rich, we do it to save everyone from it, and try to restore peoples humanity. The greed of the rich almost doesn't matter, the system has a logic all its own.

    The social system similar to what you describe, which is basically feudalism of nobles and serfs, has its own rules and arose out of its own conditions, like capitalism arose from the revolutionary overthrow of feudalism. Maybe capitalism will give way to some worse form of social relation, I suspect many people are working on that as we speak. But that's why we have to fight and win for a better system

    Socialism or barbarism!

  • It is a mental desease. If I hoard umfathomble amount of newspapers, I would be called a messi. If it is capital wealth, someone is a genius. They collect to fullfill an emptness in themself. It is a delusion. It is never enough and only the continiues ammassing can give them the feeling of success and control. Consumption as a Stimulus. It is not about the amount, it is about the growth. The way you took to the next number/amount. Distancing yourself further from the others. While getting confirmed by enjoying, what many can not affort. Wealth is the main storyline that is understood by every generation and culture around the world and is a globally accepted metric for desire and standing.

    There is no Endgame. But a good perspective for them would be something like Elysium, while for us it is more like Gattaca - at best.

    • It is a mental disease

      Yes. As a completely uneducated non-certified internet therapist I'd say that disease is fear. I really believe that those people that strive for more and more do so to try to fix a fear of not having enough. Or a fear of not being enough. Instead of actually trying to recognize the this fear and controlling it, they just do the one thing that can temporarily make them less fearful and that is make more, control more.

  • Implying their train of thought can go beyond "MOAR MONEH"

    Also, they'd love to be slave owners, but since slavery was banned in most of the world, they have to skirt around with silly laws and whatnot, so wage-slavery works. Hell, it might even work better than actual slavery, since you can own all the stuff the wage-slave can buy and pay for!

  • The rich don’t care about money, they care about capital. They want to own every house, automobile, factory, and natural resources. Money is a very temporary store of value so more assets can be purchased.

  • Slavery for us, power for them. That’s it. We get nothing, they get everything.

  • It's like a Dark Souls game. Many of the bosses are tough, but the final boss is just some guy and is rather easy to cheese with parries. The mobs you have to fight to reach the final boss are harder than the boss itself.

  • I don't think we will get to that level. It doesn't make sense financially. I mean sure, replace people with robots will happen but it's a long way from happening right now.

  • This is a good, nutshell explanation of late-stage capitalism.

    As far as the answer to "what's the endgame", I do not know. I suspect that many or most of these rich folks are so moneyblind that they don't know either. Or, they simply don't believe that their collective actions will eventually cause the system to fail.

    But most likely, I think, is that they believe someone else will bear the majority of any negative impact. Of course this makes less sense in the face of a systematic collapse, but again: it's probably very difficult to see when you have dollar signs in your eyes.

  • I see it as a frenzy, like a mob trying to scoop up cash as fast as they can that was strewn across the highway by a wrecked security truck. No logic, no thought, just an addict without any controls.

  • Everyone here has written echoes of the same viewpoint: the wealthy got too greedy and so now the whole world will die as they stand and watch.

    While I understand the allure of such narratives that paint a world falling into pieces at the hands of the ultra-wealthy, I think it's worth exploring an alternate vision of late-stage capitalism. One where despite being grim, we avoid descending into a completely unrecognizable dystopia.

    In this scenario, nearly the entire workforce is displaced by robotic and AI-driven automation, leading to a massive societal shift. With most traditional jobs gone, the public faces mass unemployment and widespread poverty. Outcry erupts as the majority falls below the poverty line. With nearly all jobs displaced, for most people only two options remain: attempt entrepreneurship or face unemployment.

    Confronted with growing public unrest, governments reluctantly implement basic welfare measures such as small universal basic income or food stamps, providing just enough for people to get by. Meanwhile, the majority of global funding is redirected toward research and development, primarily powered by these new forms of automation. This fuels breakthroughs in production and technology, eventually driving down the cost of quality goods. Over time, even those relying on minimal welfare begin to see modest improvements in their quality of life.

    Meanwhile, the wealth gap grows wider than ever. Billionaires, enriched by the automation economy, turn their attention to ambitious but arbitrary ventures like constructing moon bases, developing underwater cities, or investing in life-extension technologies. Occasionally, these projects destabilize society—whether through anti-competitive practices or efforts to sidestep government oversight—but as long as governments hold their ground (a non-trivial task), their effects on the majority remain limited.

    What results is a fragile balance: a world with basic welfare programs supplying the masses, incremental technological progress, and a stark divide between the majority and the ultra-wealthy. It’s far from utopian, but it avoids outright collapse. As innovation continues, life gradually improves for everyone—even though the wealthiest always dictate the terms and reap the greatest rewards.

    • Yeah I'm not sure I can picture that world in light of recent events. Your scenario seems to treat human beings like they have foresight. Unfortunately, we have seen pretty unequivocally that this trait is rare. In fact the existence of this post stems from billions of people noticing the obvious fact: practically no one, not even the rich, seems able to care about what happens in the not-immediate future.

      In a mildly sane world, I'd say you're right about that being a possible path for history to take. But I've lost my ability to find the sanity in this world. Sorry, I know this sounds dramatic but it is what it is. I'd love to still be the commenter who'd reply to a comment like mine here to try and instill a bit of hope but...I'm not.

      • Hmm, if you're interested in expanding further I'd love you to share more detail. What specifically in the scenario I proposed would require foresight?

        I suppose you could say the government passing some form of increased welfare could require foresight but even that is primarily reactionary (a reaction to the public unrest from record rates of unemployment and poverty). If you look at the civilian unemployment rate, it's quite low right now, around 5%. In the worst of times, it's been 10-15% during which there were huge pushes for the government to step in (ie. covid relief / 2008 financial reforms). That makes me think that if we experienced sustained high (15%+) unemployment it's quite reasonable to predict that there'd be enough pressure for the government to provide some significant form of relief.

        If anything, my pessimism would stem from social unrest due to the polarization of media, the hyper optimization of content, and similar negative byproducts of capitalism plus advanced optimization. But I view these all as distinct problems separate from the problems discussed here (the economic conditions induced by late-stage capitalism).

124 comments