Elon Musk’s capitalist vision of absolute abundance ironically mirrors Karl Marx’s socialist dream.

Endless material abundance raises knotty questions about wealth distribution and finite planetary limits.

Humans require psychological friction to thrive; comfort without struggle may cause existential atrophy.

Aside from their belief in free trade, few convictions are more universally held among economists than the idea that there will always be ample jobs for all. The standard view holds that while new technologies inevitably produce short-term dislocations—creating winners and losers, punishing those slow to adapt—in the long run, heightened productivity fuels broader growth and prosperity.

This optimism is so ingrained that, when a colleague and I surveyed economics professors across the U.S. about a decade ago, only around 7% considered mass structural unemployment a realistic prospect in the coming decades. The main dissenters? A small subset of radical, Marxist-leaning economists, among whom roughly 40% viewed such a scenario as plausible.

How the Rise of AI Has Shifted Economic and Social Anxiety

That survey predated the explosive rise of A.I. Back then, warnings about technology-driven job obsolescence felt more theoretical than imminent. Today, the conversation has shifted dramatically: discussions of universal basic income (UBI) as a necessary buffer against widespread displacement are no longer fringe. The idea has even featured as a core plank in a former presidential candidate's platform, reflecting........

© Psychology Today