> In this scenario, they only need enough factories to meet the needs of themselves and the other aristocrats.
That could still end up taking all of the planet's resources, if enough aristocrats try to maximize their military capacity to protect themselves or play some kind of planet-wide game of Risk, or if they create new goods that require absolutely insane amounts of resources.
I mean, ultimately, the issue is that the common people have nothing of value to trade except for resources that they already own, and no way to accumulate things of value. Because of this, the aristocrats will never have an incentive to sell anything to them: if they had any use for the common people's resources, they would just take them. So I think there are three possible outcomes:
* The aristocrats' needs become more and more sophisticated until they need literally the whole planet to meet them, destroying the common people in the process.
* The aristocrats provide to the common people, no strings attached, out of humanism (best case scenario).
* The aristocrats take what they need and let the common people fend off for themselves, creating a parallel economy. In that case the common people would have jobs, although they would live in constant worry that the aristocrats take more land away from them.
That just hits "replay" and provides convincing evidence to any new or surviving overlords that the capabilities of the masses must be suppressed more successfully next time.
That could still end up taking all of the planet's resources, if enough aristocrats try to maximize their military capacity to protect themselves or play some kind of planet-wide game of Risk, or if they create new goods that require absolutely insane amounts of resources.
I mean, ultimately, the issue is that the common people have nothing of value to trade except for resources that they already own, and no way to accumulate things of value. Because of this, the aristocrats will never have an incentive to sell anything to them: if they had any use for the common people's resources, they would just take them. So I think there are three possible outcomes:
* The aristocrats' needs become more and more sophisticated until they need literally the whole planet to meet them, destroying the common people in the process.
* The aristocrats provide to the common people, no strings attached, out of humanism (best case scenario).
* The aristocrats take what they need and let the common people fend off for themselves, creating a parallel economy. In that case the common people would have jobs, although they would live in constant worry that the aristocrats take more land away from them.