If the proposed mechanism is that imbalance arises from a small group of elites who strongly control everything, why would they not fully exercise such control to maximize utilization and efficiency of their profit-generating workforce? Why would elites in full control even permit enough of the workforce to become sufficiently unemployed that they can no longer maximally produce or purchase?
In any other system, the rapid development of a huge local energy or material surplus within a system indicates that some quality external to the system has changed. Often that change is the local consequence of the broader system becoming more organized.
If we remove the money abstraction from our world, what do we see in matter and energy? Globally, more humans are alive now than have ever been alive on this planet before, and they are much better fed, sheltered, and clothed for longer lifespans than for the majority of our existence. Locally, small numbers of individuals can channel the sun to cause great works to rise out of the ground without maintaining vast warehouses of goods or a standing workforce. The automated trade of information and time, of which we slowly take part, generates far more activity and wealth than any activity that humans mediate directly. However, the rich perhaps avoid death slightly longer than most, but remain subject to the same limits as all others.
Are we simply supposed to be angry because most of us were not chosen to accompany SkyNet when it came online? Curious that we protest our fellow humans but forgive machines to which we are made to feed our attention and information for the small gruel of online companionship and community. Are we angry that we're being sold the same social relationships that we worked so hard to build?
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