AI’s Efficiency Trap: When Productivity Destroys Demand

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is the second piece in a series. The first, Marx Was Right About AI, examined the leverage knowledge workers hold over AI deployment — and why mission-driven organizations will capture the productivity gains that extractive ones cannot. This piece operates at a different scale: not the firm, but the monetary system. Not the leverage window, but what comes after it closes. The third piece, The Robustness Imperative, asks what kind of AI infrastructure serves workers, organizations, and states — rather than extracting from them.

Marx Was Right About AI

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first piece in a series. The second, The Efficiency Trap, examines what happens to the monetary system when the displacement described here runs to completion. The third, The Robustness Imperative, asks what kind of AI infrastructure serves workers, organizations, and states — rather than extracting from them.

For two centuries, the story of automation has followed a simple script. Capital invests in machines. Workers are displaced. The productivity gain flows upward. Repeat.

Degrowth on Radical Optimist

AI’s Efficiency Trap: When Productivity Destroys Demand

Marx Was Right About AI