The Post-Labor Ontological Shift: Autonomous Production Systems and the Dissolution of Classical Economic Paradigms

This conceptual paper argues that contemporary autonomous production systems introduce an irreversible ontological rupture between value creation and human labor. Unlike previous technological transformations, which displaced tasks while preserving human centrality, current systems increasingly optimize, coordinate, and reproduce value independently of human agency. The paper reframes the present crisis not as one of unemployment or skills mismatch, but as the structural exhaustion of the labor–capital nexus. It contends that policy responses centered on re-employment, re-skilling, or labor activation fail to address the core transformation: the emergence of an economic system that no longer requires human labor as its organizing principle. This work is presented as a theoretical foundation for further research on post-labor economic ontology.