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Comment by mercanlIl | Hacker News Reader

I interpreted the parent comment as asking what society _specifically_? Not some abstract concept, but something that exists a step or two away from where we are right now.

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That is correct, living in Sweden with pretty high levels of social protection, but even so, high levels of white collar unemployment would make our very high risk housing market (we as a population has a very high loan ratio, much of it committed to housing) collapse once people can’t pay. That would make the banks likely to collapse because their money no longer exist and they’re all of a sudden real estate brokers with inventory far below what they paid out in loans. Union coffers would deplete fast, there would be no blue collar work so they also get dragged in with the storm. Oh and of course, the stock exchange will crash completely.

Covid gave us a glimpse, this would make it look like child’s play, because there’s no solution and it’s not getting better.

The rich will of course get richer, even if absolute value goes down, the relative value of their wealth will go up.

But what is their wealth, exactly? Assets which no longer have value. Money which no longer has a use. Who's going to maintain their jets when the economy collapses? Who's going to build the parts? Who's going to build the tools to build the parts? Who's going to mine the ores?

Their lives are built atop the same supply chain we all depend on. They don't have their own miners, or aerospace engineers to design planes, or naval architects to build their boats.

They can not consume the marginal capacity of an economy that doesn't exist.

They will still be ahead as long as they can provide to people swinging the batons.

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