LIQUID LABOR

The Embodied Productivity Race of the 2020s

My Research Essays on the U.S.–China Contest for the Time Bank of Machines

Chapter VII — Toward the Von Neumann Machine

When robotic factories can build the actuators, joints, and control boards of other robots faster than depreciation erodes the stock, the economy crosses into self-replicating capital — the industrial Von Neumann machine.

The metaphor: "Factories that grow like living systems."

This is the terminal state of Liquid Labor — an economy where productive capacity is self-amplifying. Time becomes the unit of currency. Each autonomous hour generated can be "reinvested" to produce more autonomous hours. At this stage, productivity growth decouples from human demography. That is the Time Bank realized.


Next: Chapter VIII — Policy Imperatives