The transition from a human-centered economy to a token-centered one is a structural break. The core asymmetry is straightforward: humans have purchasing power but limited scalable productivity, whereas AI has scalable productivity but no intrinsic capacity to consume. For centuries, economic, political, and cultural systems have been organized around human labor and human demand. If that organizing principle is disrupted, the most probable precondition to the next expansion is an intense deflationary phase. This may prove to be the defining challenge—and the defining opportunity—of most people’s lifetimes.