The idea for this piece began on a quiet evening with my wife, as we watched Cleo Abram’s recent YouTube interview with Sam Altman about GPT-5. What started as casual curiosity soon deepened into a conversation about what might happen when AI and automation take over more and more of the work people do today.
We weren’t talking in hypotheticals anymore; it felt immediate. Altman was describing a future that’s already knocking on the door. As the interview played, we started tracing the ripple effects. One question led to another until we landed on housing …the place where economics becomes deeply personal.
The foundation of capitalism has always been a tug-of-war between capital (those who own the means of production,) and labor (those who operate them.)
Capital owns the infrastructure, tools, and systems. Labor rents its time and skills to use them, producing value for capital. Wages flow from capital to labor, and labor spends that money back into the system, buying goods and services from capital. This cycle keeps the economy alive.
But automation and AI are rewriting that equation.
Every job a machine takes over tips the balance further toward capital. As capital gains full control of production without needing people, the centuries-old tension between labor and capital dissolves—and with it, the circular flow of money that sustains the economy.
When wages disappear, so do customers. Without incomes, fewer people can afford rent or mortgages. Housing demand weakens, but ownership consolidates—into the hands of investors, institutions, and those who already hold significant wealth.
That evening, we found ourselves asking:
- If machines can produce almost everything without us, how do people earn the means to live?
- Who will own, and control, the housing stock in a post-labor economy?
- Without wages, how will people pay for shelter?
- Does this transition make publicly funded housing—or broader socialism—inevitable?
Housing isn’t just a commodity; it’s the cornerstone of stability, health, and community. When labor’s link to housing affordability breaks, we’ll have to rethink the economics of shelter entirely.
We could see:
- A rentier economy where a small ownership class controls most housing.
- Public or cooperative models treating housing as infrastructure, not investment.
- Guaranteed housing rights funded by taxes on automated productivity.
If capitalism is to survive in any recognizable form, it must be redefined; untethered from the labor-wage-consumption loop. Housing will be one of the first—and fiercest—battlegrounds for that transformation.
The real question isn’t just what kind of housing policy do we want?
It’s what kind of economic system can sustain fair housing in a world where human labor is no longer necessary?