The question of socialism posed inescapably in the final moment of the human economy

Suppose we switch on an AI that can do everything humans can do, and do it better. Suppose, at this point, human labor just gets in the way and uses valuable land and capital better assigned to a robot. Note that doing everything humans can do includes entrepreneurship, management, and so on. Not only is there no longer a role for the worker, but there is also no longer a role for the capitalist as decisionmaker. The only remaining economic roles for humans are:

1. Consumption and

2. Potentially, ownership

But ah, will we have ownership? Or rather, will we have ownership of significant productive assets?

All arguments for individual ownership of significant productive assets are gone bar one:

A) One can no longer argue private property in capital is necessary for organizing economic decision-making. Even if some kind of market structure is necessary, it could better be organized between the artificial entities acting as trustees for humanity as a whole.

B) One can no longer argue that private property in capital held by human capitalists is necessary to reward labor and prudent economic decision-making. Humans are no longer making any of the decisions or doing any of the labor.

C) It is no longer tenable that capitalism is a dynamic system that gives anyone a chance to rise to the top. There are no more chances. No one born past this date will ever get an opportunity to win out in the market through their talents or virtues. Even existing agents have no more chances.

D) But what if the private ownership of the means of production is necessary for a liberal order? A frozen distribution of available matter, energy, and computation doesn’t seem necessary for liberalism at all.

All arguments for private ownership on the grounds that it increases overall human welfare are gone.

One might argue from a desert theory:

E) Such an approach would try to argue that the unequal split in capital ownership is a just reward for the past decisions of capitalists and their contribution to the resulting largesse that humanity now finds itself with.

But this is at best partially right. Numerous individuals had tried hard and made all the right decisions but got very unlucky. Also, the distribution of goods didn’t count the massive positive and negative externalities. Perhaps, if desired, we could run a computer simulation and figure out the real division of credit and redistribute property accordingly. I doubt there will be much excitement about this option, but there you go.

In the end, much of the conviction that capital owners could keep their wealth comes down to:

F) Property belongs to its owners, so you shouldn’t take it from them.

And what do we make of that? Are you convinced?

At this point, after capitalism as we understand it is over, what do we do? Do we allow private property in significant productive goods to continue, or not? Assuming the existing distribution, do we let one percent of our species own a majority of the light cone forevermore, or do we refuse? Capitalism as we understand it, and as humans experience it, ends at the end of human economic usefulness. Through action or inaction, we will choose between its possible replacements. Fully automated socialism, or fully automated and eternal inegalitarianism.