In this blog, I confront the looming bifurcation of labor driven by AI and automation. I describe how organizations like Kaamfu are enabling a world where a small, highly skilled Productive Class wields immense leverage within disciplined, hierarchical structures, accomplishing feats once requiring massive workforces. Alongside them, a much larger Supported Class will emerge—individuals displaced from traditional labor, sustained by new social systems decoupled from employment. I explore the ethical, societal, and leadership challenges this split creates, emphasizing the need for leaders to master both the Gundam Model of enterprise and the Soft Model of societal care.
We are approaching a bifurcation point. As AI advances, automation takes hold, and organizational control systems like the ones we’re building at Kaamfu become standard, the structure of labor itself will split. Not by industry. Not by geography. But by function.
- On one side: The Productive Class.
- On the other: The Supported Class.
The Productive Class will be those who remain embedded in the machine — the operators, commanders, builders, strategists, and high-function specialists who sit inside the Gundams of enterprise. They will be few in number but enormous in leverage. The AI tools they command will multiply their output to previously unimaginable levels. A small company with 50 humans and a few agents may accomplish what once required 10,000 employees.
These people will live and work inside disciplined hierarchies. Their organizations will resemble military structures — not in culture, but in clarity. Each role essential. Each position earned. Competition will be fierce because the leverage is enormous.
On the other side: The Supported Class. Millions — tens of millions — displaced from traditional work but still needing to live, to exist, to find purpose. Many will be intelligent, even talented, but structurally unnecessary to the hyper-efficient economy.
For them, society will need to construct something entirely new. Some form of universal provisioning will likely emerge — whether you call it Universal Basic Income, social dividend, or participation credit doesn’t matter. The idea will be the same: to decouple survival from employment for those who cannot compete in the new economy.
And with it will come an entirely different ethic — one that today’s anti-authority managerialism hints at:
- Work will no longer be the primary source of identity for many.
- Equality will be defined less by capacity and more by dignity of existence.
- Hierarchy will feel cruel where survival is no longer tied to contribution.
- Authority will only be respected when it signals care, not competence.
In many ways, these two systems will operate side by side. Inside businesses like mine, the Gundam Model will remain dominant: hierarchy, discipline, role clarity, and ruthless performance. Because markets will still reward those who win. Outside that sphere, the Soft Model will govern: a system designed to stabilize populations that no longer have a seat at the table of production, but who still need to be sustained.
Both will be necessary. Both will be real. And both will create their own tensions. The real question — the one that most leaders are avoiding — is: which side are you building for? If you’re building a company, you’re building a Gundam. If you’re building a society, you’re building the Soft Model. And increasingly, the leaders who succeed will need to understand both — and know exactly when to apply each.
Because the next 20 years will not be about managing companies. They will be about managing the collapse and reorganization of labor itself.
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