In the end, we’d expect land to increase in value because people who need land get more productive and can therefore afford to bid it higher, but if the value of human labor drops, shouldn’t we expect the value of land to drop too?
Will the value of human labour drop? The immense scale of economic disruptions in a future where there is widespread AGI makes the question itself hard to interpret. There are many theories of value that are relatively similar in modern economies but come apart in very different ones such as these hypothetical futures.
Regardless of that, I think that returns on any relevant capital investments would skyrocket for a while, followed by pretty major rises in rates of return on investment in whatever the new limiting factors turn out to be—very likely some forms of economic rents.
In the end, you presumably don’t much care about returns directly in monetary terms, but in what it gets you in the new civilization. Goods, services, influence, security—whatever. I think land as a general rule is pretty unlikely to get less of these than it does now, and in some cases likely gets very much more—though as with any investment there will be risks.
Will the value of human labour drop? The immense scale of economic disruptions in a future where there is widespread AGI makes the question itself hard to interpret. There are many theories of value that are relatively similar in modern economies but come apart in very different ones such as these hypothetical futures.
Regardless of that, I think that returns on any relevant capital investments would skyrocket for a while, followed by pretty major rises in rates of return on investment in whatever the new limiting factors turn out to be—very likely some forms of economic rents.
In the end, you presumably don’t much care about returns directly in monetary terms, but in what it gets you in the new civilization. Goods, services, influence, security—whatever. I think land as a general rule is pretty unlikely to get less of these than it does now, and in some cases likely gets very much more—though as with any investment there will be risks.