Member-only story
The End of Capitalism (As We Know It): How AI and Automation Challenge Economic Orthodoxy
Capitalism has always thrived on reinvention. It has survived technological revolutions, economic collapses, and societal upheavals by evolving, shifting, and finding new ways to generate value. It is a system designed for change, and yet, for the first time in modern history, it is encountering a force that may be fundamentally incompatible with its core principles.
Artificial intelligence is not just another tool of efficiency. It is not another steam engine, another assembly line, another internet. AI is something altogether different — a system that does not just assist human labor but, in many cases, makes it unnecessary. The implications of this shift are profound. Capitalism, as we know it, is built on two foundational assumptions: that labor creates value and that scarcity determines worth. If AI renders labor obsolete and eliminates scarcity, then the very mechanics that drive capitalism begin to break down.
For centuries, we have measured economic progress by productivity and employment. As…
