In the classical capitalistic model, people are valued by their contribution to society. That model contradicts liberal democracy, human rights, ecology, etc. Each particular culture (in the developed world) finds its own balance between economic efficiency vs liberal values and different parties have their own advertised viewpoints. That system has been evolving last couple of centuries and produced contemporary western society – the least worse of all societies.

The real problem arises when social acceleration reaches a breaking point. Then a big enough part of the society falls so behind, that the only way for them to survive is to use the democratic process in order to bend economic and social rules in their favour (e.g. protectionism, racism). That leads to two problems: first – the goals vary from immediate to short-sighted and second – it reproduces more of the same kind of behaviour (more bending). This creates a new type of popular stereotype – ignorant and useless but entitled (think red necks). Unfortunately, this process will deepen because of rising GDP (new tech) and the ability of society to support more and more ignorant people. Now, what would happen if the number of people actively contributing to the GDP becomes so small that the democratic process favours the ignorant majority in the long run? The intrinsic values of the society become of crucial importance: the societies which are more greedy, more closed and generally speaking more mid-20 century oriented will decline first socially and then economically. The USA is heading that way, and I’m afraid that Trumpism is just the first of many to follow. On the other hand, societies with a deep liberal base and genuine social tolerance and pluralism have a much bigger chance to use high economic efficiency (GDP) for harmonizing their societies (e.g.UBI). Contemporary examples of such societies are Scandinavian countries, maybe less today but more in immediate future.

There is no time, some game-changing developments like general AI are just around the corner, their push to the social acceleration will be in historical proportions. That is if humanity survives the rising class of irrelevant people next 30 to 50 years.