The classic “class struggle” is an heuristic articulated at greatest length and with the most imagination by Karl Marx. His argument was that no balance was possible, that Capital was so rapacious that they would abuse the workers more and more and more, such that at some point it was “historically–no, Historically–Inevitable” that a revolution would occur.
It seems reasonable to suppose this was his projection, based on his own rapacity, his own greed, and his own lack of inner balance.
But balance was struck, was it not? As the rich got richer, so too did the poor. Everyone benefited. Standards of living rose and rose until kids who don’t get supercomputers by age 7 feel “oppressed”, a word which used to mean hunger, crapping in the road, years without bathing, and beatings and arbitrary imprisonment.
So we got a Yin/Yang between Labor and Capital, to the profound chagrin of the haters and aspiring tyrants. So they have had to be creative in creating new victims, and new prisms by which to proclaim an “oppression” to which they can claim to be the solutions.
But if you look at it like this, the real Bidirectionality is between the INTELLECTUALS–who call themselves “revolutionaries”, but who are simply greedy opportunists who lie even to themselves–and EVERYONE ELSE.
And there is NO balance in this relationship, as it has been practiced historically. There were limits to the greed of factories. Greed has limits. If you kill the Golden Goose, you cut off the gold. You can become fabulously rich FASTER in most cases if you have relatively happy workers. Ford figured that out quickly, and made a lot of money with that idea.
BUT THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO THE GREED OF INTELLECTUALS. They want everything. They are not balanced by either prudence or goodwill. They want everything and everyone under their absolute control. And it does not matter to them that they could have more of all the stuff, more money, more opportunities to do anything–like sail around the world, or go to space–if they were not so focused on CONTROL. Power is what they are truly greedy for, and their lust in this regard is insatiable.
Seen this way, the intellectuals are the REAL “Capitalists”. They are the enemy in their own drama.
And without going deeply into it, where do robots fit in all this? They would seem to be the enemies of labor. Are they the potential servants of the intellectuals, who would be happy to destroy a working class they never really wanted or needed to achieve their true ambitions?
The robots are coming, whether we want them to (I don’t, of course) or not.