Toward Generative Relational Economics: A Universal-AI Thought Experiment on the Foundations of Political Economy

Abstract

This paper uses a universal-AI thought experiment to examine which political-economic structures persist when human labour is extensively replaced by artificial productive agency. The analysis treats productive-subject substitution as a structural test rather than a technological forecast. It distinguishes generated outcomes, generative capacities, and generative conditions, and asks whether money, accumulation, exploitation, power, rights, and justice remain intelligible when the principal productive carrier changes. The resulting framework motivates Generative Relational Economics (GRE), an analytical extension that studies how agents obtain generated outcomes, mobilize generative capacities, and participate in shaping the conditions of future generation. The thought experiment suggests that technical substitution can transform productive carriers while leaving relations of access, dependence, appropriation, and generative control available for reproduction. GRE is developed as a framework for examining these relations across human, artificial, and mixed-agent economies.