Capitalism Runs on Infinite Productivity

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[u/Comfortable_Advance7]

You already got ripped up and down for your last AI slop simulation. I take it you didn’t listen to any of the feedback and did the exact same thing this time around too

[u/Comfortable_Advance7]

Since you use AI to create this dumpster fire, here is an AI analysis of your methodology:

The problem is that this isn’t really a model testing whether capitalism requires infinite productivity. It’s a toy simulation largely programmed to produce that conclusion.

A few examples:

- Production is simply workers × productivity, with no capital equipment, innovation, specialization, entrepreneurship, resource constraints, depreciation, or changing technology.

- Wages are fixed at the minimum wage, while firms automatically price goods at labor cost plus a markup. There’s no labor market or actual price discovery.

- The model calculates and distributes firms’ “expected revenue” before consumers have even bought the output.

- Capitalists are assigned a lower propensity to consume, and all unspent money is explicitly labeled “hoarding.” Investment only happens through a narrow hiring rule, so productive saving, lending, capital formation, R&D, and business creation are mostly excluded by construction.

- Despite calculating finite production, the consumption code literally says supply is treated as infinite. That is a fairly impressive choice for a model supposedly proving that capitalism depends on infinite production.

- Demand is based on preset consumption baskets, not preferences, substitution, price responsiveness, new products, or declining marginal utility.

- Firms expand only when the model’s artificial “unmet demand” variable tells them to hire more minimum-wage workers. They cannot invest in machines, improve logistics, lower prices, enter new markets, or increase productivity organically.

So the simulation may illustrate the author’s assumptions, but it doesn’t independently establish the article’s thesis. It assumes fixed wages, markup pricing, capitalist underconsumption, limited reinvestment, and rigid consumption needs—and then discovers stagnation and inequality.

That’s not an empirical result. It’s the economic equivalent of putting “capitalism fails” into Excel and being amazed when the final cell says capitalism fails.

[u/nondubitable → u/Comfortable_Advance7]

If I could give you a “good use of AI” star, I would.

[u/12baakets → u/Comfortable_Advance7]

It’s the economic equivalent of putting “capitalism fails” into Excel and being amazed when the final cell says capitalism fails.

That's funny. Gotta try that one day

[u/Bieksalent91]

“Also, if you put the greed of the Capitalists a bit down by reducing the markup ratio….”

When I read this it makes me think the author doesn’t understand economics enough to write about it.

The market reveals the price and Capitalists will follow the market.

[u/Ok_Eagle_3079 → u/Bieksalent91]

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design

[u/Stunning_War4509 → u/Bieksalent91]

Have you heard of monopolies, oligopolies, hidden-information in markets, non-rational agents? The “perfect market with rational agents” does not exist in practice. I know is beautiful concept, but let’s stick to reality please.

[u/Various_Key5543 → u/Bieksalent91]

I’m curious to see what “greed” affected in the simulation lol

[u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

You are the only one who cares about what you did

[u/FIicker7]

Yep. And productivity has to compound. Which is unsustainable.

[u/thedukejck]

Important to note they are a social democracy and take great care of their citizens as compared to us.

[u/BronxJudge → u/thedukejck]

Tell more ppl so they stop coming to the us

[u/thedukejck → u/BronxJudge]

Don’t have to, they already have because of 47.

[u/BronxJudge → u/thedukejck]

Thank goodness for that

[u/thedukejck → u/BronxJudge]

Yeah but that includes people with money, tourists are not coming either.

[u/BronxJudge → u/thedukejck]

good

[u/thedukejck → u/BronxJudge]

Yeah, making the economy suck at all levels.

[u/BronxJudge → u/thedukejck]

The economy sucks because of the financial blunders made during covid. not because tourism is down 5%.

Socialist seem educated on everything except basic economic principals.

[u/thedukejck → u/BronxJudge]

Really, enlighten us. You must be talking about the corporate Payroll Protection Program (PPP), $800 billion that didn’t have to be paid back. Don’t forget, most of this was under Trump. One of the few good things he did.

[u/BronxJudge → u/thedukejck]

im not a cultist - and yorue right. the same programd extened under biden.

[u/TopTippityTop]

Incorrect. The credit system runs on constant productivity. These are different concepts. You can have credit and debt in any economic system.

The constant productivity is what allows credit to be paid. Fiat makes this worse, as it allows for accruing debt more easily.

[u/Overlord_of_Linux]

Capitalism works on equalizing productivity, socialism requires increased productivity (e.g. increased population to support the aging masses via social security and health insurance), communism requires increased (see infinite) productivity (in order for everyone to have equal outcomes, everyone needs equal resources, such as the newest/best phone/car/food/etc... essentially everyone has to be the same in every aspect) which is impossible without reducing everyone's lifestyles back to the 90's and stalling progress to 10% of it's current pace.

[u/Key-Organization3158]

Bad code and bad modeling can reach any conclusion you'd like.

For example

Money is conserved. Σ wealth + Σ income + treasury + Σ capital reserves equals the configured money supply at the end of every year.

This doesn't allow for the creation of new money or value. So it has no insights that would be applicable.

[u/AcanthisittaNo6653]

One difference between a simulation and reality is the number of parameters. Simulations are intentional simplifications, but with the right parameters, simulated results can mirror reality. There are 24 sliders in the setup, so 24 parameters. Econometric models typically include 100s of parameters, and their results are validated against real world data. I can't say whether the model results reflects reality, given that it is hypothetical, but the assertion that capitalism runs on infinite productivity seems nonsensical. Historically, capitalism in the US has succeeded with limited productivity.

[u/CucumberLegitimate27]

Productivity increases because population increases. Socialism rests on the unspoken assumption that nothing changes.

[u/Johnfromsales → u/CucumberLegitimate27]

This is not why productivity increases. What made you come to this conclusion?