> The situation we're in is a result of people acting rationally within a set of rules that were predicated on some assumptions that are no longer true, like that the demand for labor is essentially infinite.
IBYP? I don't know anyone who thinks the demand for labor is infinite. I can see in your next paragraph, you're jumping the gun and thinking about a robotic society, but hang on there, cowboy (a pun on your last line). While such a shift in system may seem necessary in light of such a future, you're still thinking about economics in terms of how the system will improve things. It's natural for most people on HN to be the rationally-minded architectural types, so they think systems will solve problems. But pause for a moment and consider: Which world would you rather live in:
A) A world where humans (and maybe robots) compete in the market place, where people pursue their own interests and ends in effort to "get ahead". i.e. The world we're headed for. And by the way, this world could be either capitalistic, socialistic, or communistic. The fact is, people will pursue their own interests regardless of the system.
B) A world where humans (and maybe robots) are supportive of each other, offering help to those in need, sharing resources, and seeking the well being of each other.
Yes, it's a leading question, but I think you'd agree world B is nicer. That's the one we want. However, that's the one that requires change in the MORAL AND ETHICAL CHARACTER of people, i.e. the part of people that says "Do good to your neighbor", "Help your neighbor buy groceries", "Help your neighbor fix his/her sink/tub/car", "Help teach your neighbor's kids", as opposed to selfish mentality of "Pay the Stanford coach to let your kid be admitted ahead of other kids" and "When the balance is in your favor, say nothing" and "Make the poor pukes be the garbage man while I, privileged individual, get the high-paying executive role". The fact is, if everyone supported each other, we'd all be ahead by now. But then each person gets the idea that they'll let OTHER people be helpful while THEY get ahead, and the whole thing collapses.
In short, unselfishness would work. And before you object and say it won't happen here (which is quite plausible and very likely), you can't say it NEVER works. For example, Tokyo is one of the safest places in the world due to the underlying philosophical foundations of Japan that taught people to rely on the good of society. It worked for a while (although in more recent times, these philosophical foundations are decaying, so more violence is prevalent, and notably, the reliance on society was directed inwardly (towards the Japanese) not outwardly (towards foreigners), otherwise they wouldn't have been part of WWII). It's a complicated story, and I'm not expounding much. I'm also talking too long and you're going to want to stop reading.
tl;dr - It's a human problem, not a problem of the system we have.
I don't know why it should be, but I can tell you from personal experience that it is in fact different. To be sure, the U.S. is moving more towards the African model (to my great dismay) but it's not quite there yet.
> I think you'd agree world B is nicer.
Sure. And I'd like a pony too. But if you want to actually solve problems in the real world you have to deal with reality as it is, not as you would like it to be.
No, I don't agree. I've done a lot of traveling in Africa so I know what corruption looks like, and what we have in the West ain't it (yet). The situation we're in is a result of people acting rationally within a set of rules that were predicated on some assumptions that are no longer true, like that the demand for labor is essentially infinite. The rules are also based on some assumptions that were never true, like that societal well being can be objectively measured in terms of GDP or ROI or something like that, and that infinite growth is possible.
To fix this problem we need to fundamentally change the rules of the game to better align with today's reality, and more importantly, tomorrow's likely reality: machines can do pretty much anything that humans can do, so the market value of labor is almost certainly going to plunge. That's good for buyers, but bad for sellers. But sellers are people too. We can't just discard them the way we do excess horses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans_Need_Not_Apply).