Izabella Kaminska — The robot economy and the new rentier class

Izzy picks up on robotics, too. New meme in the making?

...rather than our subsidising those who have lost jobs to technology, so as to spread that manna wealth that’s literally dropped onto the surface of the earth at no-one’s physical disadvantage, companies are using monopoly power to extort rents on the capital that is creating all that free wealth.

That’s why inequality is rising.

As technology proceeds in a patent-obsessed world, the fruits of innovation flow to the owners of the capital and invention, forming a whole new rentier class. The financial assets/debts that back the innovation technology, meanwhile, get disproportionally valuable as their purchasing power gets completely out of whack with the output they radically accelerate.

The Financial Times | FT Alphaville
The robot economy and the new rentier class
Izabella Kaminska
(h/t Andy Blatchford via email)