It's a treatise on left politics for leftists — Moliere

I'm out of here then I guess :P

"Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work"... Didn't read it.

Saying "Post" something-or-other makes it sound like the writer has perceived a major turning. Maybe. Some time, maybe 25 years ago, a socialist group I was in was batting around the idea that workers were becoming unnecessary. automation and robotics have been around quite a while. An unnecessary working class flies in the face of the orthodoxy that labor creates all wealth. It also screws up the model of the economy where workers produce and buy, pumping money through the economic plumbing.

I have no problem with mechanized, electronic systems replacing many workers. The crappier jobs (a majority) could, should, and damned well ought to be replaced by machines and electronics.

There are two big problems with the guaranteed basic income idea: One big one is that maybe a majority of the population are not prepared--mentally, physically, or emotionally--to have decades of life without work. For a substantial percentage, life-without-work is more of a nightmare than a joyous future. It's sort of like disability: having the status of "unable to work" becomes an additional disability.

The other big one is whether there will be enough wealth available -- and granted to the unoccupied, unproductive population to maintain a life worth living. The capitalist class is rather stingy.

Were the revolution to have occurred, and the capitalist class was disposed of (nicely -- turned into ordinary people) the problem of the stingy ruling class would be eliminated, but then we would enter the unexplored, uncharted territory of an economy based on altogether different principles than what we (anybody) has dealt with so far.

That said, I've always enjoyed time without work -- on unemployment, living on savings, and early retirement. There is a reason why people are paid to work: nobody would do it for free. I had a couple of jobs which were so interesting I would have done them for nothing (for a few months, not years) but most jobs are devoid of intrinsic reward. A majority of jobs are flat, unsatisfying, dull, vaguely humiliating [it's not the work, it's the staff], unstimulating--and it goes downhill from there.

Work might be more satisfying under a different model of work. Working on the railroad that workers own might be better than working for Warren Buffet on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. Working in a retail coop should be better than working for Walmart.

Here is an earlier manifesto by the two of them: http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/

I'm afraid I haven't read the book. Moliere, maybe you could tell us a bit about what you enjoyed in it. I see Srncek is something of a philosopher: I found an interview with him discussing Simondon, Meillassoux and all that. :)

I liked it because I've sort of felt in a rut in my political thinking, and both their critiques of some popular beliefs (which they term "folk politics") and the positive project they outline seemed both fruitful and agreeable.

That isn't to say that I endorse everything they have to say. In reading that manifesto I'm not surprised that they are accelerationists, and that actually was one of my concerns with their project.

But what it offered was something fresh, and positive. Not that anything they say is necessarily unique or even original, but it was a good exposition of these ideas from the perspective of the modern left in the U.S. and Europe, and why it should be important to a 21'st century left. So, rather than going into the ins and outs of various historical periods (not that this isn't valuable, but there's more to politics than its history, no?), it just tackled the 21'st century head-on, and did so in a direct manner that was easy to read.


Roughly the book is divided up into a critique portion and a positive project portion, followed by some concluding remarks on the pragmatic side of things. The critique is mainly of current leftist movements' beliefs -- pre-figuration, immediacy, and our relationship to both demands and the future are the main targets. Occupy Wall Street is a good example of the target they have in mind, though there are others as well.

But unlike most critiques of OWS, this book is more sympathetic. Not that they agree! Far from. But it's not dismissive, and the writers clearly understand what they are criticizing. So that, unto itself, was nice to read. (It's not that I thought OWS was perfect, but I certainly wasn't interested in criticisms from, say, an advocate of current representational democracy)

So it's like they both take the left to task, but are also sympathetic to and desire the goals of leftist politics. So it served as a good kind of mental floss.



There positive project can be boiled down (and they are the ones who do this outline) to 4 demands:

1. Full automation (meaning, robots do a lot of work)
2. The reduction of the working week
3. The provision of a basic income
4. The diminishment of the work ethic.

The only one of the demands that gives me pause is 1 -- not because work is good, but because I know that automation, in the hands of neo-liberalism, means loss of jobs. It smacks of eggs and omelet thinking. But, it goes nicely hand-in-hand with the last three, where the first creates the conditions to make the next two possible (without a reduction in material wealth), and those three would only be possible if the fourth were actually accomplished (as you note @Bitter Crank -- people do find meaning in work these days)

The chapter goes into detail on these four demands and why they are important to a radical politics sympathetic to socialism (broadly construed -- not necessarily "Socialism is everything the USSR did" but Socialism as a set of values and the collective ownership over the economy).

#2 and #3 could be implemented tomorrow - theoretically. The current national representative government (House/Senate) isn't able to wipe it's ass, let alone pass progressive legislation. Neither item is particularly radical -- both were floated in the 1960s -- Milton Friedman thought a guaranteed income was a good idea.

Automation has been introduced into all manner of work, from surgery to soy beans. The technology has been developed far enough to eliminate a large share of the jobs the work force performs IF owners of work places decided to restructure their operations to eliminate 70% of their workers.

We could practically achieve the first three points of the plan by... oh, maybe 2036. That's only 20 years down the line and with a very large investment to get the technology in place, everywhere. (Successful automation doesn't require state-of-the-art equipment in everybody's back pocket.)

Automation will eliminate jobs. Indeed, that's the whole point of automation.

Beware. Automation hasn't been wielded by workers for their own good. It has been wielded by management for command and control and cost reduction. Even if work sucks, that doesn't mean that having no work will be better. Even the suckyest work place is likely the source of many people's vital social relationships. It's often the very suckyness of work that has bound people together.

Replacing the workplace as a critical social institution is going to take a lot more than weakening the work ethic. (One doesn't have to be a reprobate republican to wonder about how strong the Protestant Work Ethic even is. I see some evidence of it, but not lots of evidence, not everywhere.)

Even if work sucks, that doesn't mean that having no work will be better. Even the suckyest work place is likely the source of many people's vital social relationships. It's often the very suckyness of work that has bound people together. — Bitter Crank

That's actually addressed too, in the section aptly titled "The Misery of Not Being Exploited"

It would definitely take a political project to make automation not-suck, as we have already seen with the effects of automation on the lives of working people. It's whose in control, though, and not automation itself which makes that bad for the working class.

They defend their project as a utopian project, actually. These demands are just the concrete, minimal-project that they envision for a proper 21'st century left. It was interesting to read their defense of utopian aims, to say the least (which isn't to say I agree with them, either -- but its not usual for people to defend utopianism).

The chapter goes into detail on these four demands — Moliere

Great. But it isn't just old fashioned, out-of-date old-leftist-fogies who say the first demand that needs to be met is "Hand over the keys and the cash." Taking possession of society's wealth (mostly in the hands of a tiny minority) is the only way to assure that the basic income is high enough, that working conditions are good for all workers, especially those doing the dirty work that is necessary but not worth automating, and that automation is in the interests of the workers and consumers.

Let's not think that Apple, Google, and Uber have our best interests in mind, or if McDonalds brings in the all-robot-fast-food operation, that we should all say "hallelujah".

I don't think Apple, Google, McDonalds, and Uber have our best interests in mind, or that automation is a panacea. Nor do the authors. I'm not sure how I gave that impression at all.

You didn't give that impression. There are children present who might have fastened on to panaceas like automation or the infinite don't-be-evilness of Google. I was just heading them off at the pass.

OK cool. Sounds good.

haha. I was reading it as a reply, and so was kind of confused.

Just the description of the book was raising some alarm bells. Not wanting to pay $10 for the cheapest version, I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ8TUAVpUXo where he talks about the subject of the book "in layman terms". But it just kept raising those same alarm bells -- and I think I'm as corporate, (I work for a bank), technological, (in the IT department), and lefty, (just over the hill from Berkeley, CA), as you can get.

First, I am a bit put off when someone starts out talking about problems. It is like the late-night infomercial who reminds you of all the problems you have with eggs sticking to the frying pan just before they introduce their frying pan lubricant. The more time you have to explain the problem, the more I think it wasn't really such a big problem except that the solution doesn't seem worth the money. Neoliberalism and Occupy Wall Street have lots of flaws, but the problems they are trying to solve are very real and probably a lot worse. If it was such a great solution, you should just jump to that part. I think there is a human bias which allows us to easily shift focus and satisfy ourselves with whatever solution solves that newly uncovered problem than worrying about long term more catastrophic effects, (just look at global warming).

Second, I'm wary of someone who falls back to hand-waving or vague pronouncements about how there is some technological solution to the problem. Every technology has trade-offs. That frying pan lubricant makes your eggs smell a bit like motor oil. Was the solution really worth it? There are many cycles throughout history where people realize that a lot of the problems they have were caused by technology in the first place and that there are some low tech solutions there all this time. There is a human bias which focus on positive and ignore the negative.

Third, currently, technology, economy and society are all tightly integrated. You change one parameter and it changes all the rest. Maybe the "problem" we have are partly the result of the some other party of society. I have to work at a job so I have a car, I need a car so I can get a job. If I don't need a job, I actually don't need a car. Then I don't need to live near a city with jobs. Society would look so different, the problems in that society would seem misplaced by today's standards. The real solution probably requires projecting ourselves into that place to figure out what solutions we really need.

In capitalist economies, money has become objectified values, so technology is our need/desires objectified. If we ever managed to automate everything, then we would no longer be relevant to the economic equation. Even political spectrum, "conservative" and "liberal" are balance each other, simplifying the negative and positive emotions of the population.

Reduction of work week. Well, that is a minor economic tool to fine-tune consumerism and capitalism at the lower levels. Is it even relevant in a "post-capitalist" society? There is an assumption that we will still work and won't like it. In such a big economic and social shift, that assumption may no longer be true.

Basic income is nice, but it is another capitalist adjustment, and it has an obligatory part of inflation which keeps invalidating what is considered "basic". So you need to put a bunch of other controls in place, like price fixing for essential assets or forced restriction on what is considered a "need". If you need to do that, then start with that.

I liked this piece from The Guardian "A world without work is coming – it could be utopia or it could be hell".

It touches on a number of the good observations made here.

There positive project can be boiled down (and they are the ones who do this outline) to 4 demands:

1. Full automation (meaning, robots do a lot of work)
2. The reduction of the working week
3. The provision of a basic income
4. The diminishment of the work ethic. — Moliere

I like this idea, but instead of #1, I'd replace the robots with a money tree. Assuming the tree flourishes (which I'm sure it will), 2, 3, and 4 will follow naturally.

Maybe #5 would be to have a young woman (my preference at least) handing out sexual favors without limitation or objection beneath the tree. Then this garden would be perfect. I certainly hope no serpent arrives and casts me out, as that's how I recall the story going.

First, I am a bit put off when someone starts out talking about problems. — swstephe

But what if there are problems and people do not see those problems? I believe this is why he begins -- because people don't see it as a problem, so they have no reason to look at the solution. So he's making the case, here, for why the rest of his argument should be paid attention to.

I suppose you could just skip that part, though, if you're already interested.

Second, I'm wary of someone who falls back to hand-waving or vague pronouncements about how there is some technological solution to the problem. Every technology has trade-offs. — swstephe

I don't think it's quite hand-waving. It's not just "well, technology will take care of it" -- but automation has already had a large effect on the economy, and automation is already something which companies are pushing for. Automation is here, and it cuts into the number of jobs that are available (has already cut into jobs that are available). (He goes over this at minute 21 of the video -- still listening, but he starts to cover the topic there)

Whether full automation is a real possibility, I'd say there's still a point because automation has already had effects on employment, and there's no good reason to think that companies are going to somehow avoid automation when they can implement it and it costs less (isn't that the proverbial threat we hear when fast food workers organize? That they'll be replaced by machines?)

Third, currently, technology, economy and society are all tightly integrated — swstephe

I'm not following how this speaks against the authors. I would say that you and the authors are in full agreement on this statement.

In capitalist economies, money has become objectified values, so technology is our need/desires objectified. If we ever managed to automate everything, then we would no longer be relevant to the economic equation. Even political spectrum, "conservative" and "liberal" are balance each other, simplifying the negative and positive emotions of the population. — swstephe

Could you spell this out? I don't know what you're getting at here.

Reduction of work week. Well, that is a minor economic tool to fine-tune consumerism and capitalism at the lower levels. Is it even relevant in a "post-capitalist" society? There is an assumption that we will still work and won't like it. In such a big economic and social shift, that assumption may no longer be true. — swstephe

Not in a post-capitalist society, but a demand that makes sense right now in our concrete conditions. Is a post-capitalist society even possible? I don't know, but I know that what we have isn't working, and that our relationship to work is a part of that.

Basic income is nice, but it is another capitalist adjustment, and it has an obligatory part of inflation which keeps invalidating what is considered "basic". So you need to put a bunch of other controls in place, like price fixing for essential assets or forced restriction on what is considered a "need". If you need to do that, then start with that.

Sure, UBI is not luxurious techno-communism. It's a demand that makes sense today. You would be fighting similar fights as you do now with the minimum wage, but that's not to speak against the idea. Of course adjustments will need to be made. There is no solution which is just going to take care of itself -- history doesn't end.

You're just being dismissive. Do you have a reason why it wouldn't work?

One point from the video that I thought was good to make was that automation is not inevitable -- as we see now, there is extreme exploitation by use of cheap manual labor because machines would actually cost more. After a country industrializes, capital will then move to places where industry costs less.

Also, the demand puts into perspective the need for a global orientation to labor politics.

But what if there are problems and people do not see those problems? I believe this is why he begins -- because people don't see it as a problem, so they have no reason to look at the solution. So he's making the case, here, for why the rest of his argument should be paid attention to. — Moliere

While many problems could be valid, there are just as many movements, scams and pseudo-science that start out that way too. First thing to be suspicious of is why people don't see it as a problem. Was it really such a big problem? Maybe people were more concerned about bigger problems until then. Unfortunately, there are a lot of movements out there that start out with "X is broken", then claim to fix it. If you try to debate their solution, they turn it around to complaining about the problem instead of looking at the solution. It is an old distraction. You can see it in a lot of arguments from transhumanists, or the Venus Project, or anything. Some really good movements get stuck into this bad habit.

I don't think it's quite hand-waving. It's not just "well, technology will take care of it" -- but automation has already had a large effect on the economy, and automation is already something which companies are pushing for. Automation is here, and it cuts into the number of jobs that are available (has already cut into jobs that are available). (He goes over this at minute 21 of the video -- still listening, but he starts to cover the topic there) — Moliere

If you added up all the positive and negative effects, do you end up with a net positive outcome? If so, was that positive outcome based on some other economic pressure? I have found in other movements, if you get past the problem and focus on the solution, you end up trying to figure out how is it going to pay for itself. I found one group pushing similar solutions who eventually turned out to be fans of pseudo-scientific theories and wishful thinking to cover those mundane details. I've engaged in a few debates where people thought robots and computers could do everything for us and we would be left to a life on perpetual leisure. But any questions of such an environment would be dismissed as the results of a lifetime programmed for the "old way of thinking". In a way it is just a variation on the old arguments about heaven and hell.

Could you spell this out? I don't know what you're getting at here. — Moliere

I'm looking at the problem as an engineer. There is a kind of conservation of motion even at economic and social levels. There are liberals because there are conservatives, they balance each other out. Automation has to balance with the opposite of automation, which would probably be alienation and dehumanization. It has happened many times through human history, and there is always some pressure to reclaim what was lost.

Not in a post-capitalist society, but a demand that makes sense right now in our concrete conditions. Is a post-capitalist society even possible? I don't know, but I know that what we have isn't working, and that our relationship to work is a part of that. — Moliere

I took some personal time off to address this kind of question. I realized that not only is post-capitalist society possible, (every society was pre-capitalist at some point), but we spend a minority of our time being capitalists. If you remove the time at work or shopping, you spend a lot of time in what is essentially a socialist household. The "state" provides services, works and nothing depends on real exchange of money. Capitalism is already shrinking. More services and social interchange are becoming less capitalist every year. Take a look at this TED Talk for a comparison.

well said
well said

you spend a lot of time in what is essentially a socialist household — swstephe

Reminds me of a scene from Mel Brooks' Twelve Chairs. The character is searching desperately for a chair that has jewels sewn into the upholstery. He arrives at this one house and gets on his knees and begs for information. The lady comrade says "This is a soviet household. There will be no groveling`

If you added up all the positive and negative effects, do you end up with a net positive outcome? — swstephe

That would depend on who you ask and what you want, no? I don't think there would be some kind of measure -- I'd say that we argue over what the measuring tool is, not on the calculations.

If so, was that positive outcome based on some other economic pressure? I have found in other movements, if you get past the problem and focus on the solution, you end up trying to figure out how is it going to pay for itself.

I'd say that it's easy enough to say that, yes, it was based on some other economic pressure because that's how economies work -- the buggaboo of much economic thinking is ceteris perebus. But when you look at economies not as physical systems but as historical systems it's easier to suss out how things might work in conjunction, and gives a guide to how you might proceed differently from those before you.

I'm looking at the problem as an engineer. There is a kind of conservation of motion even at economic and social levels. There are liberals because there are conservatives, they balance each other out. Automation has to balance with the opposite of automation, which would probably be alienation and dehumanization. It has happened many times through human history, and there is always some pressure to reclaim what was lost. — swstephe

Eh, I guess we don't share these beliefs. I don't think that political or economic systems behave in a manner commensurate to a conservation law, or that people on the spectrum balance one another out, or that one particular idea must be balanced out by another idea.

There's opposition to political movements in history. I agree there. But I don't see how sides balance one another out or how those who disagree rely on one another.

sd

I took some personal time off to address this kind of question. I realized that not only is post-capitalist society possible, (every society was pre-capitalist at some point), but we spend a minority of our time being capitalists. If you remove the time at work or shopping, you spend a lot of time in what is essentially a socialist household. The "state" provides services, works and nothing depends on real exchange of money. Capitalism is already shrinking. More services and social interchange are becoming less capitalist every year. — swstephe

I believe post-capitalism is a possibility, I just don't know. (where post-capitalism is understood to be not a return to pre-capitalist origins, but to something different from capitalism yet still modern). ((worth noting here that I'm uncertain that the usual examples actually accomplished their end-goal, too. Merely uncertain, though))

Also, I disagree that the household is socialist, or that capitalism is shrinking.

The household is based on private property, for one, though house-hold level private property is something usually thought to be part of a socialist vision. But even more than this, capitalism permeates the household by inculcating people to values which benefit capitalists -- such as the work ethic. You teach your children to do well in school, be industrious, and obey authority because we live in a society where such behavior is rewarded (especially if you are white, especially if you are straight, especially if you are male, etc. etc. ) -- that isn't to speak against these as values, mind. But they are the values which benefit capitalists, at this moment. ((though, personally, I don't agree with authoritarian values, I'm just noting here that i'm being descriptive of how capitalism is part of the household, and not holding this or that value as an obvious thing to discard -- that would take a different argument))

The household, living within a broader capitalist context, does not escape capitalism. Its goods are predicated upon participating in that larger economic system.You can't just ignore work and consumption. That's like saying if you just ignore capitalism then capitalism isn't there. But these are the primary ways the majority of us participate in the system of capitalism (of course it's a given that few of us spend time being capitalists -- the system is built on the notion that most work for few).

To say capitalism is shrinking: what? The private ownership over the workplace -- which includes so-called "publicly" traded companies -- is not in decline, nor is the subsequent result of an owning class and a working class. I don't know how you arrived at that belief, but I have a notion that the metric you're using to classify capitalism might be where we are at odds there. Capitalism is the private ownership over the workplace, where the workplace is treated as property of some owner or another (whether that owner be the manager, or that owner be a group of people who bought shares of a company with the understanding that it would be managed by a board and host of officers to make good on that promise)


I'd note here that capitalism is indeed a worldwide phenomenon, too -- cheap labor and hyper-exploitation are necessary features of allowing some people within the world enough time and energy to participate in volunteer projects such as linux and wikipedia, insofar that such an economy is organized along capitalist lines (cheap labor being preferable to more expensive machines, when you pay them little enough or just enough to create children that can then be re-exploited). I believe that working class people in the U.S. have it hard -- it's a struggle, and it's not fair to them. But capitalism gets worse within the prisons, and within countries outside of the U.S. We can't just focus on the living standards of a handful of countries. You have to look at what capitalism does across the globe, and many of the symptoms of capital which Marx describes occurring in England in the late 1800's are just recreated elsewhere when people finally push back against those conditions -- which is possible because we treat workplaces as private entities which the owners have say over what will be done with them.

You're just being dismissive. Do you have a reason why it wouldn't work? — Moliere

Well, first off, my point was that what you envision is some sort of teenager utopia where you reap all the benefits of labor without having to do anything. Simply replace your "full automation" premise with a money tree, a rich parent, a sugar daddy, or someone else's tax dollars and you'll arrive at the same conclusion. You're trying to eliminate the "labor" from the labor force.

If someone makes robots that can do everything, obviously someone has to design them, build them, operate them, and maintain them. What this does is actually the opposite of what you want. It rids our need for low level workers and the wealth flows to those more highly skilled workers who can operate the robots. Any effort to redistribute the wealth down to those who've been made obsolete will land us right back where we are today: a disproportionate amount of the wealth will be both created and controlled by a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

That is to say, technology isn't kind to those whose contribution is brute force. Sure, they can lift the boxes of the robots and put them on the floor, but we've got fork lifts that can do that too.

Well, first off, my point was that what you envision is some sort of teenager utopia where you reap all the benefits of labor without having to do anything. Simply replace your "full automation" premise with a money tree, a rich parent, a sugar daddy, or someone else's tax dollars and you'll arrive at the same conclusion. You're trying to eliminate the "labor" from the labor force. — Hanover

The desire to be free isn't a teenage utopia.

Labor isn't something to enshrine from now to forevermore. I rather doubt that robots can entirely replace work, but that was addressed before in previous exchanges with others -- it doesn't need to entirely replace labor in order to have an effect.

Further, the entitled ones in the world we live in now don't even work. Rather, they convince laborers to work for them through coercion.

If someone makes robots that can do everything, obviously someone has to design them, build them, operate them, and maintain them. What this does is actually the opposite of what you want. It rids our need for low level workers and the wealth flows to those more highly skilled workers who can operate the robots. Any effort to redistribute the wealth down to those who've been made obsolete will land us right back where we are today: a disproportionate amount of the wealth will be both created and controlled by a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. — Hanover

This counter-argument is addressed by the conjunction of demands.

That is to say, technology isn't kind to those whose contribution is brute force. Sure, they can lift the boxes of the robots and put them on the floor, but we've got fork lifts that can do that too. — Hanover

Seems to me that owners are the unkind ones, since they have some kind of agency -- whereas robots and technology do not.

Also, I disagree that the household is socialist, or that capitalism is shrinking. — Moliere

I hate to derail the original discussion from Nick Srnicek's book. But I was doing some re-evaluating some things, growing my own food on my apartment balcony. I amused myself by how socialists the whole process the system seemed. Sunlight, rain and soil were essentially being distributed to everyone for free and without any claim of ownership. I would show up to work with a bucket full of chilies to distribute to friends at work. Some people, from 3rd world countries complained that they didn't have places to buy seeds. I told them how to break open the chilies and plant the seeds in their own garden and now they have them. No copyright or intellectual property claims.

I realized that families are internally socialist. If you heard of a family that withheld shelter, food, medical care or needs, you would probably consider them monsters. Things get distributed "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability". Schools and things brought from outside the family seem to be the only concern for the capitalist system on the outside. I even noticed it at work, (at the center of a capitalist entity), was internally socialist. I didn't have to pay for my work computer, rent my office space buy other office supplies, or consider competition for my phone system. They usually don't need to compete with each other for survival.

In the technology and financial sector, it certainly seems like capitalism is getting weaker. Most people who made digital maps started panicking when Google and Bing Maps came out. Nobody would buy their systems or satellite maps if they could view them for free. (I managed to take advantage of the system and sell some systems and applications on top of public domain maps. Google and the general trend toward open source technology has revolutionized the industry. What tech companies remain are trying desperately to still maintain value while leveraging all these essentially "free" technologies. The financial sectors are going through a major revolution as well. With so many services online, on phones and even watches, brick-and-mortar branches are shutting down and trying hard to remain relevant. Everyone is living under the cloud of Bitcoin, or one of its descendants, is going to make traditional banks irrelevant.

Thanks for outlining the thesis, Moliere. My own response to how things are as I age has been to shift to a perspective which I know is a minority view - the Green, ecological view - which I've concluded is where I am most intellectually content. Out here on a limb :) But I think I spent many years slipping into mainstream thinking while kidding myself that I was persuading people out of the mainstream.

On this limb the medium-term looks like that economically most countries will have to adjust from fossil-fuel energy to renewable energy, and that there will be considerable conflict over basic resources, including water, with wars including civil wars a likely continuing consequence. Meanwhile a belief in the rightness of inequality of reward seems embedded in Western thinking, more embedded than it was fifty years ago when I was Hanover's teenage dreamer. In that 50-year period class-based unions have weakened considerably, though gender/race-based organisations have grown much stronger. But coalitions of identity-politics-believers seem flimsy to me.

My worry about the agenda proposed is that it doesn't seem to be taking these very considerable issues into account. Automation is energy- and resource-hungry: is it really inevitable that it will grow and grow? I think it will recede when energy costs become too great, or workers begin to demand the right to work, or the powerful begin to demand that the proleteriat works in return for its basic income. (I am a strong advocate of the universal basic income, and don't think it's necessarily a capitalistic adjustment as swsteph does)

To be frank I think the word 'capitalism' has become too broad a word to be as useful as it was. It disguises tremendous differences in institutional arrangements because they all superficially share certain features.

I realise these are rather stray observations. Broadly the ideas feel to me like an extrapolation from what seem like existing trends which I doubt will continue (nor, sadly, do I agree with swstephe that 'capitalism' or business/finance is weakening). Some of them were 60s dreams too - the reduced working week, cleaner work - and events did not fulfil those dreams.

The desire to be free isn't a teenage utopia.

Labor isn't something to enshrine from now to forevermore. I rather doubt that robots can entirely replace work, but that was addressed before in previous exchanges with others -- it doesn't need to entirely replace labor in order to have an effect.

Further, the entitled ones in the world we live in now don't even work. Rather, they convince laborers to work for them through coercion. — Moliere

The requirement of labor is a reality of existence, not a decision made by coercive elements to cause pain to the masses. Someone has to pick the fruit from the trees even in the Garden of Eden. Your reference to those who organize labor to produce a product as "the entitled ones" sinks this discussion into just a diatribe against capitalism. I get it, boo capitalism!

There's no question that dishwashers and washing machines have freed us and allowed us more leisure time. Cars rush us around and get us places that would have taken weeks. Technology speeds up our lives, allows us to accomplish more, and generally makes our lives easier. None of this has resulted in shorter work weeks though.

This is why it seems to me that you are just being dismissive -- didn't I just agree with you that robots cannot entirely replace work?

Yet, though labor is part of human existence, how it is organized is indeed coercive because of how ownership is handled. Further, that it is part of existence differs from thinking that labor is somehow sacred -- which it is not. Another basic fact, from the perspective of a working class, is that work sucks. You can make peace with it, but it sucks all the same.

As you note, though, the work week has not shortened (it has actually re-lengthened). What's more, exploitative conditions like that found in 1800's have been exported to other countries. And there is a leisure class of owners responsible for these decisions -- yet you call that a diatribe.

These are just facts. The most obvious conclusion to draw from those facts, from my perspective, is that the problem is not technology, but rather the political power of labor. Automation has not resulted in more free time, but rather a reduction in well-payed jobs and an increase in efficiency of production. If the job gets done faster, yet we have no more leisure, what reason would you attribute to that?


That is not a diatribe, a pre-pubescent fantasy, an infantile yearning. It's a desire to not suffer. I've known people who have been worked so hard they are disabled to provide stupid services for entitled rich people. I've seen bosses use their authority to inflict all manner of cruelties that they were able, through their power over access to basic goods (like food and housing) which forces people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do (such as put up with abuse, such as work until they are disabled, such as take drugs to stay awake for three jobs to have enough money for children). These are facts, not propaganda. And the adult position is to care about suffering, and do something about it, rather than dismiss it as the responsibility of lazy, pubescent, ignorant, deluded etc. etc. implications that you seem to draw.

The derail is fine :).

But. . . I mean, I just don't agree I guess. Socialism is an economic system where workplaces are publicly owned rather than privately owned. So just because you didn't have to buy something at work that doesn't mean that it's socialist. The workplace is a privately owned entity, where the rules are written and enforced by those who own it (or delegate that out to managers, as is often the case).

Caring is important, I wouldn't disagree. But the household is more of a benevolent dictatorship -- which some believe is how socialism must run, but I don't think that's true. It doesn't seem to me to be set in stone.

So though we might choose to share, and not turn a profit with every individual action we take, or view school (and push for schools) which are more than jobs training, I don't see any of that as taking away from the capitalist project where there are owners who write the rules, and workers who follow them.

Thanks for outlining the thesis, Moliere. My own response to how things are as I age has been to shift to a perspective which I know is a minority view - the Green, ecological view - which I've concluded is where I am most intellectually content. Out here on a limb :) But I think I spent many years slipping into mainstream thinking while kidding myself that I was persuading people out of the mainstream. — mcdoodle

Heh. I am discontent with it, but I still spend more time on the limb.

On this limb the medium-term looks like that economically most countries will have to adjust from fossil-fuel energy to renewable energy, and that there will be considerable conflict over basic resources, including water, with wars including civil wars a likely continuing consequence. Meanwhile a belief in the rightness of inequality of reward seems embedded in Western thinking, more embedded than it was fifty years ago when I was Hanover's teenage dreamer. In that 50-year period class-based unions have weakened considerably, though gender/race-based organisations have grown much stronger. But coalitions of identity-politics-believers seem flimsy to me.

My worry about the agenda proposed is that it doesn't seem to be taking these very considerable issues into account. Automation is energy- and resource-hungry: is it really inevitable that it will grow and grow? I think it will recede when energy costs become too great, or workers begin to demand the right to work, or the powerful begin to demand that the proleteriat works in return for its basic income. (I am a strong advocate of the universal basic income, and don't think it's necessarily a capitalistic adjustment as swsteph does) — mcdoodle

I agree with you that the particular outline doesn't address environmental issues (ones which I also agree with you are important). My thought on that is that a socialism is better suited to handle environmental problems than a capitalism is. When you have privately owned firms the most you can do is either regulate and enforce (and that last part is often lacking), or make ecological choices through the market -- which still allows firms to produce non-ecologically.

But if you have social control over the economy then people can argue over what should be produced and not produced, and the ecological problem is one that's very important to people with few means (after all, the such-and-such part per million oil:water will be cheaper than the purified water of the future. Similar things will hold for all manner of ecological damage -- the rich will buy their way out of any problem, while the rest of us get to live with higher cancer rates.)

It's in this way that I tend to see labor and green politics as having similar interests, though it's hard to tell the leaders of these respective positions that -- who historically have been at odds, and whose leaders seem content on continuing that conflict.


I see UBI as an adjustment because private ownership over firms would still be in place, and people would still work for a wage -- people desire more than food on the table and a place to live, so they'd easily be persuaded to work, as long as the conditions were right, and there would still be bosses and owners in place. The working class would just have an easier time in-between jobs is all.

To be frank I think the word 'capitalism' has become too broad a word to be as useful as it was. It disguises tremendous differences in institutional arrangements because they all superficially share certain features.

I realise these are rather stray observations. Broadly the ideas feel to me like an extrapolation from what seem like existing trends which I doubt will continue (nor, sadly, do I agree with swstephe that 'capitalism' or business/finance is weakening). Some of them were 60s dreams too - the reduced working week, cleaner work - and events did not fulfil those dreams. — mcdoodle

Whoops! missed that. haha.

Perhaps so. I still use it, though, because I don't have any other words to describe the social relationship which results in x, y, and z -- as detailed by Karl Marx. (Though I am not Marxist, his critical project is pretty spot on and useful for understanding power relations at work). The particulars -- or, to use Marx's term, the "concrete conditions" -- will differ considerably, and are important to any actual project. But the social relationship bears a causal property that explains power at work.

Your final point is something that I do think the book addresses, too -- they are trying to revive this notion of utopia and dreams because they feel they should continue, that they give something to work towards and push for. That's why they named the book "Inventing the Future": the left's home is in the future, and in painting a better future (according to them).

Heck, some of these dreams go back to the dawn of the labor movement at the birth of widespread industrial capital. Peasants were forced off of lands and proletarianized by the fact that they owned nothing but their labor, and could survive only by selling their labor which gave owners coercive power over their lives by being able to say who gets to eat and who doesn't. Hence the demand for the reduced working week without a loss of pay. So even though 60's dreamers may have participated in that tradition, I'd be hesitant to accept that designation because generally people think it means "impossible" -- when the fight for a shorter working week has actually been won before (and since gone in decline) by people fighting for those very dreams.

Yet, though labor is part of human existence, how it is organized is indeed coercive because of how ownership is handled. — Moliere

It's handled efficiently as is evidenced by the never ending innovation and increased productivity. In fact, it is this very system that is producing the robots that you believe will lead to our salvation, yet for some reason you condemn it.

Further, that it is part of existence differs from thinking that labor is somehow sacred -- which it is not. — Moliere

You're speaking gibberish. The term "sacred" means nothing to you. It's a hollow concept that fools insert into sentences to create meaning where there is none. Unless you can tell me what is sacred, it seems a waste for me to explain why labor might be sacred.

And there is a leisure class of owners responsible for these decisions -- yet you call that a diatribe. — Moliere

These leisurely folks work much longer hours than the guys on the assembly line.

If the job gets done faster, yet we have no more leisure, what reason would you attribute to that? — Moliere

Our thirst for more things doesn't end when one task is completed, but we produce more things.

It's a desire to not suffer. I've known people who have been worked so hard they are disabled to provide stupid services for entitled rich people. — Moliere

And I've seen things that don't suck. That is to say, I'm dismissive of your anecdotes.