I was rereading the Communist Manifesto. It's a truly awesome bit of speculative fiction. It was written in 1847 (that's pre-Jules-Verne!) yet nails a bunch of the ongoing tensions of today. It's got its misses and what-the-hells, but it probably got around half its predictions right. That's amazingly good.
Its major thesis is that capitalism is increasing the pace of progress and production beyond all reason, maybe even racing ahead of what anyone needs. Meanwhile the companies are controlled by a top-ten-percent while the great majority barely get by. States and cultures get homogenized as business becomes more multinational and global, grabbing resources and skills from across the globe to continue producing more and better goods of all sorts at ever decreasing prices.
Eventually, it says, the majority will be forced to work at less wage than it takes to survive, and they'll revolt. Here it went wrong. It turns out capitalism is improving quantity and quality of production and decreasing the cost of manufacturing faster than the rate it's lowering salaries. The endpoint isn't the masses being forced to work for nothing, but the masses becoming unnecessary as the means of production automates itself. The workers could still unite to sabotage the world, but they couldn't accomplish anything by going on strike if they aren't needed.
Another thing it got wrong is that the masses are powerless. Maybe in Europe in 1847, but in the US since 1787, the masses have the right to vote, so ultimately political power is held by the masses. Giving handouts to the masses is a very politically favorable thing to do if it doesn't have much downside.
Another thing omitted is that the masses are consumers as well as producers. As production becomes easier and easier, demand becomes the the most precious commodity, and the source of demand is the time the masses have on their hands.
So, in America, what happens in the limit when the means of production get so good that they don't need workers and things are produced almost for free? What happens is the government taxes the means of production and redistributes the taxes in handouts to the masses, which lets the masses survive, thrive, and spend their time consuming rather than working. That's already all happening in the US. No need for a revolution of any sort.
The 2020 pandemic was a dry run. It gave out only $3200 per adult between April 2020 and April 2021, just for one year, and made it difficult for most people to work. The economy slowed down a lot, inflation went up. Doing it for real would mean $30000 per adult every year, that's 10x as much, without harming the economy. So, the means of production still have a long ways to improve before we reach this state.
Communism wants to eliminate private property, claiming the poor have nothing and the rich don't deserve what they have, and it's necessary in order for everyone to get enough. That's all wrong. (The poor do the most consuming, and they do it better when they have money. The rich I know actually do work and are better at it than most people, making the little choices that direct industry to improve. Once production gets good enough, there's more than enough for the rich to be very rich and the poor to be rich too.) The downside of eliminating property is it kneecaps capitalism, which is what's causing and maintaining the cheap and improving production. Downside, no upside, so don't eliminate private property. Like I said, no need for revolution, everything's set up already.
The manifesto had several goals:
They also mentioned eliminating marriage (women live in a commune, men pay women every time they have sex, no "being true") and eliminating families raising children. Bad. Yeesh. Did they talk to any actual women before proposing that one? Or men even? Or children? Cults sometimes try that, but I don't think any communist nations have. I guess that suggestion got quickly and rightly ignored. Parents and grandparents raising and supporting children is very deeply baked into human beings. A small inheritance is part of that.
I'm surprised they didn't mention the state paying for health care. Effective health care just didn't exist for anyone in 1847, so I suppose it didn't occur to them. The winning strategy seems to be pretty-good-but-not-awesome state health care, and you can pay for extra health care if you wish to. It's very much like private property: the state will give you what you need, but if you want more you have to work for it, and you can keep it (heavily taxed) if you do work for it. Pensions, same thing.
Driving production costs to zero is not the end of the road. Once globe-spanning industry can produce things at zero cost, there are advantages to producing things at zero cost locally instead. Fewer ways for things to break down or be sabotaged. So the means of production will improve by replacing global things of near-zero-cost with local things of near-zero-cost. This trend is already happening today anyhow, it's just the trend towards significantly cheaper prices by globalizing is stronger at the moment, because prices are still significant at the moment.
Having power vested in the masses when the masses don't produce anything isn't stable. However the masses do produce the choices of what to consume, which is the most valuable commodity post-scarcity, so perhaps having power remain with the masses is stable. Web pages counting visits is very directly this sort of economy.
Once everyone can survive without doing any work, overpopulation raises its head. Overpopulation can negate any productivity gains eventually.
I've calculated elsewhere how long the economy can keep expanding before it runs into physical limits. It's about 10000 more years.