No Stupid Questions

In the theoretical endgame employment is reduced to where there aren't enough people with money to be customers. There's a wave of consolidation as businesses with lots of cash buy failing ones, further concentrating wealth. Eventually the impoverished public gets desperate enough to riot and steal what they need, outnumbering law enforcement. The system no longer has the resources to protect itself, and we physically demolish our society. Then there's a reset back to a time of bartering.

What’s the endgame for them if their current path takes them to a point where their assets are more or less worthless?

Get too rich, too powerful, burn the earth, and die happy before the consequences of their behavior catch up with them.

Money won't be used anymore then.

They find something else, so that they can own you even better than with money.

For some time, science fiction thought that it's body parts: They own your body, and if you have too much debt, somebody takes a part of you, instead of money.

I hope that biotechnology will advance enough, so that synthetic parts will become available before that happens.

If all the billionaires in the world instantaneously ceased to exist, and all their money were evenly distributed to everyone on earth, you would get a one time payment of about $1,769. Then what?

The world is not a zero sum game. that alone defeats your premis-

I see it as a frenzy, like a mob trying to scoop up cash as fast as they can that was strewn across the highway by a wrecked security truck. No logic, no thought, just an addict without any controls.

This is a good, nutshell explanation of late-stage capitalism.

As far as the answer to "what's the endgame", I do not know. I suspect that many or most of these rich folks are so moneyblind that they don't know either. Or, they simply don't believe that their collective actions will eventually cause the system to fail.

But most likely, I think, is that they believe someone else will bear the majority of any negative impact. Of course this makes less sense in the face of a systematic collapse, but again: it's probably very difficult to see when you have dollar signs in your eyes.

"Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_happy

Hasn’t that endgame been pretty much reached?

They never will. But they’ll likely always have most of it. The government will print money just enough to keep inflation low-ish but allow people to feel comfortable enough to spend it. Big corps will eventually accumulate them and hoard it.

With AI and automation, I think the 1% will want less people (bugs) around them in a not so distant future. We might have they answer to this question soon enough. Spoilers : we lose.

Automation.

Everyone here has written echoes of the same viewpoint: the wealthy got too greedy and so now the whole world will die as they stand and watch.

While I understand the allure of such narratives that paint a world falling into pieces at the hands of the ultra-wealthy, I think it's worth exploring an alternate vision of late-stage capitalism. One where despite being grim, we avoid descending into a completely unrecognizable dystopia.

In this scenario, nearly the entire workforce is displaced by robotic and AI-driven automation, leading to a massive societal shift. With most traditional jobs gone, the public faces mass unemployment and widespread poverty. Outcry erupts as the majority falls below the poverty line. With nearly all jobs displaced, for most people only two options remain: attempt entrepreneurship or face unemployment.

Confronted with growing public unrest, governments reluctantly implement basic welfare measures such as small universal basic income or food stamps, providing just enough for people to get by. Meanwhile, the majority of global funding is redirected toward research and development, primarily powered by these new forms of automation. This fuels breakthroughs in production and technology, eventually driving down the cost of quality goods. Over time, even those relying on minimal welfare begin to see modest improvements in their quality of life.

Meanwhile, the wealth gap grows wider than ever. Billionaires, enriched by the automation economy, turn their attention to ambitious but arbitrary ventures like constructing moon bases, developing underwater cities, or investing in life-extension technologies. Occasionally, these projects destabilize society—whether through anti-competitive practices or efforts to sidestep government oversight—but as long as governments hold their ground (a non-trivial task), their effects on the majority remain limited.

What results is a fragile balance: a world with basic welfare programs supplying the masses, incremental technological progress, and a stark divide between the majority and the ultra-wealthy. It’s far from utopian, but it avoids outright collapse. As innovation continues, life gradually improves for everyone—even though the wealthiest always dictate the terms and reap the greatest rewards.

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Money isn't finite, that's why billionaires and soon trillionaires exist. They couldn't ( or literally had to be an emperor) when money had a closer relationship to reality or was gold. Anyways, because of the nature of our currency now, the size of their pile has zero effect on the size of your pile. "No new cars, no tech gadgets, no fancy dinners, no vacations, no disposable income." not how it works. If you add up the 20 richest Americans, you get close to 2.7 trillion, which is the estimated amount of physical cash in circulation. None this shit is real. American national debut is 36 trillion. Ever saw an actual cash shortage? Like not a personal one, the money not existing to complete a transaction, like not being able to move cash you hold to another person because of lack of availability of signifiers? Not a thing anymore.