Michael F Schundler
3 min readSep 22, 2022

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You misunderstand capitalism and economic growth. Economic growth simply means producing more goods and services per person.

You are suggesting that as we stand before the most massive expansion in automation based on AI, that mankind won't be able to use AI and machines to growth the economy a multiple of what it is now. Seriously?

The real question is what is holding us back... and the reality is government policy. And while the wealth of the billionaires seems to bother you, most of them became wealthy producing affordable or virtually free products. Economic growth is not a net sum zero game. If I produce one billion dollars of apples, how is that making others poorer?

Most people sell labor, some sell knowledge, some sell natural resources and others "rent" capital.

But for most people who have no control over natural resources, and who have limited capital, they are basically selling a bundled package of labor (expressed one way or another as units of time) and knowledge (expressed as a "skill" or "expertise").

If the value of labor declines, then your scenario of people getting poorer will occur. And this is happening to some extent in America. But it is not the wealthy, who are to blame, it is globalization and to some extent "containers", that have made labor a "global commodity" rather than a local one.

The American worker is earning less not because Bezos is making money, but because some similar person in India or China is willing to work for much less. It is not the "extractor" class that is to blame, it is global working class. Trump tried to address this through his fair trade and protectionist policies, but there was a lot of "pushback" from consumers, since when you protect US worker wages, you raise the cost of products... and citizens balked at paying their fellow citizens more.

You can't fix the problem until you admit the truth.

I for one support Trump's policy regarding fair trade and tariffs on strategic goods as well as energy independence. I try to "buy American" knowing the extra I pay goes to American workers. I recognize foreign workers need to make a living, but my allegiance is to Americans first, regardless of race, gender, religion, etc.

I also want to control immigration. We need to increase our legal immigration quotas by almost 50% since our birth rate is dropping rapidly. But we also need to secure the border, so we know who is coming to our country.

Under Trump, low wage workers saw the biggest jump in purchasing power in more than two decades, which explains some of their loyalty to him. I don't care if Trump runs again, but I do like those policies even if it costs me more to buy stuff...

Higher wages are the most equitable way to reward people for working rather than create entitlements which have real negative consequences by suppressing production. But those higher wages must be factors like supply and skills and not artificially raised through government policy, which simply exacerbates the issues of producing good overseas.

The second way most people can increase their standard of living is by overlaying their time with skill or expertise. I see little effort by government to improve our failing public schools and an almost unholy alliance between teachers' unions and politicians to prevent giving children options when public schools are failing. How can people improve their standards of living if they attend failing schools... for most of them, our government has hamstrung them before they reach the age of 20... that is a real crime... the government has stolen their future and created a generation of people dependent on it.

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