PLANET OF THE ROBOTS: Four Futures of Automation | 1Dime

PLANET OF THE ROBOTS: Four Futures of Automation | 1Dime

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this video is part of a collaboration with  youtuber Second Thought be sure to check out   their video as soon as you're done watching  this video i highly recommend their content imagining new sociopolitical  systems can be quite hard   one could even argue that it's easier to imagine  the end of the world than it is to imagine the   end of capitalism one thing is for sure though  capitalism as we know it will end maybe not soon   but definitely at some point no social system  lasts forever and after all capitalism is a   far more chaotic and unstable order than most of  those that preceded it it collapses almost every   10 years and that's without foreign intervention  and internal sabotage this begs the question then   what system will come next will it be something  better or something much worse here we'll be   speculating what life after capitalism could look  like for better or for worse and we'll be going   over four potential futures that could develop  over the course of the next 50 years in particular   we will be taking inspiration from the book: Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase   the author considers possible features that could  either be marked by scarcity or abundance the four   possible futures that Peter Frase considers in  his book go as follows Communism: egalitarianism   and abundance Socialism: egalitarianism and  scarcity Rentism: hierarchy and abundance   Exterminism: hierarchy and scarcity before getting  into these four possible futures there are a   couple of key realities and assumptions about  our changing world that we have to take into   consideration one being climate change and the  second being automation climate change is not only   a threat but it is already happening we have been  seeing higher temperatures and increased cases   of floods droughts and forest fires ever since we  opened up the economy towards the end of the coba   19 pandemic the scientific consensus about climate  change is clear human carbon emissions are warming   the atmosphere leading to hotter temperatures  extreme weather and an increasing frequency of   storms and droughts this could potentially lead  to shortages of water and other resources the   melting of sea ice and the acidification of oceans  also risk releasing many viruses around the world   the question is not so much whether the world  will end or whether humans will be able to survive   the question is who will survive rich people are  already buying properties in gated communities   within areas that are most safe from floods  such as new zealand furthermore it's also worth   understanding that it is highly unlikely that we  will be able to combat climate change within a   capitalist framework to substantially cut carbon  emissions and toxic waste we need to drastically   reduce mass consumption and production two  things that capitalism requires to exist   as it depends on perpetual upward economic growth  now we must consider the second main existential   issue that will define our future automation while  there are varying estimates it is clear that over   time more and more jobs can or will be replaced  by automation and labor saving technologies   robotics and 3d printing can replace repetitive  tasks in industrial production while ai and   machine learning threaten to computerize jobs in  the service sector that we would normally think   require human intelligence in a widely cited study  using a detailed analysis of different occupations   produced by the us department of labor oxford  university researchers estimated that about 47   of current u.s jobs are susceptible to automation  or computerization thanks to current technological   developments the organization for economic  cooperation and development uses the same source   data but a different approach over a longer time  frame and suggested that the figure could be as   high as 80 percent regardless it should be clear  at this point that the possibility of widespread   automation in the near future is very real but  why does automation occur in the first place   to compete with other capitalists corporations  will try to lower the cost of production as   much as possible which is why capitalism has a  tendency towards ever increasing automation this   makes production ever more efficient but it also  hinders the system's ability to create new jobs   companies have an even greater incentive to  automate labor the higher the labor costs are   this puts workers in a dilemma  asking for higher wages is good   and necessary but it puts more industries  at risks of automating their production   but instead of settling for lower wages out  of fear of losing jobs to automation we should   be embracing automation demanding higher wages  and also be demanding a universal basic income   which will obviously be necessary for workers  but it may even be necessary for the capitalist   system to function as people will need money to  consume commodities and with not enough jobs to   go around demand will decline rapidly leading  to declining growth which is something that   capitalism obviously can't handle the generosity  of the basic income provided will probably depend   on the level of union activism and what we demand  politically as mentioned earlier many industries   are being automated and most of the jobs that we  actually need in society are either starting to be   replaced by automation or have the capability  of being replaced automation has been rapidly   overtaking many of the areas that until recently  served as the capitalist economy's biggest motors   of job creation from fully automatic car factories  to computers that can diagnose medical conditions   robotization is taking over not only just  manufacturing but much of the service sector as   well in fact many of the service sector jobs that  are not being automated are arguably superfluous   and unnecessary books such as [ __ ] jobs by  anthropologist david graber do a good job of   highlighting this jobs such as receptionists  administrative assistants door attendants middle   managers advertising jobs and many other office  jobs are either capable of being automated or are   completely just unnecessary for society taken to  its logical end point automation could bring us to   the point where the economy does not require human  labor nearly as much this does not automatically   bring about the end of wage labor but we'll  increasingly face the possibility of freeing   people from having to work merely just to exist  and get life's basic necessities whether we take   that opportunity and how we do so will depend on  two key factors one being the question of resource   scarcity the ability to find cheap sources  of energy to extract or recycle raw materials   and to generally depend on the earth's capacity  to provide a high material standard of living to   all and the second factor being socio-political  will we be able to overcome capitalist ideology   which holds the current system intact unless  you are brainwashed into capitalist ideology or   are lucky enough to find yourself within the top  one percent of the economic hierarchy it should   be obvious that automation is a nightmare under  capitalism but it could be a dream come true for   socialism the society in which a tiny elite owns  all of the robots would be very dangerous indeed   this is where we'll get into the four possible  futures but before getting into it if you enjoy   this type of content and want to keep it going  please consider supporting the channel on patreon   a lot of work and time is put into these videos  and you won't find this level of quality on   very many channels that don't have some sort of  corporate funding or fan funding now let's start   with the worst case scenario first and then talk  about the best possible futures towards the end   so while it may seem dark and gloomy  at first it will get better i promise exterminism hierarchy and scarcity the  revolutionary theorist rosa luxemburg famously   said socialism or barbarism but the phrase should  be more like socialism or extinction a society   with both hierarchy and scarcity would be the  most barbarous of our possible futures a deeply   unequal society in which the environmental crisis  is too late to ameliorate and in which resources   are scarce what if we arrive in a future that  no longer requires the labor of the mass working   class but still possesses the same uneven class  hierarchies of capitalism the combination of   resource scarcity automation and hierarchy could  lead to something very terrifying the greatest   danger posed by the automation of production  in the context of a world of hierarchy and   scarce resources is that the ruling elite are no  longer reliant on the labor of the working class   this consequently makes the masses of people  useless from the standpoint of the ruling elite   this would be highly different from the typical  class conflict in capitalism as we know it where   class conflict is defined by a simultaneous clash  of interests and mutual dependence on one hand   workers depend on capitalists for wages as long as  the workers don't control the means of production   themselves while on the other hand the capitalists  need the workers to do the work for them   or else nothing gets done and no profit is made  this class conflict of mutual dependence is partly   why many capitalist countries in the past and  many today still have a form of a welfare state   the existence of an impoverished unemployed  working class that is organized politically   poses a great danger to the ruling class which  is partly why the capitalist state often tries to   buy off the masses with wage increases government  services and some degree of wealth redistribution   when buying off the angry masses is no longer a  sustainable strategy the capitalist state often   resorts to totalitarianism but for the rich  another option is to simply escape the poor   through gated communities and private islands  protected by private military contractors or they   could possibly move to an entirely new planet  a scenario depicted in the movie elysium with   matt damon in a system with extreme hierarchy  and scarcity and very little jobs to go around   workers would be pit against each other and meant  to compete for jobs as law enforcers or protectors   for the wealthy but having a mass of angry poor  people at bay is always a risk to the ruling class   they could theoretically unite together and  overthrow the capitalist class and take control of   the means of production themselves and establish  a entirely new society that actually benefits them   to avoid this risk it is a possibility that  the wealthy elite may resort to a dangerous   path that peter freys calls exterminism this  could take shape in multiple forms either in   the form of biological population control or  even flat out genocidal extermination if need be   paying and arming one faction of the  working class to wipe out the rest   while such a level of extreme barbarism seems to  morally outlandish to even be conceivable it is   worth noting that the united states is the country  that incarcerates the most amount of people in the   world and forces them into forced prison labor  and also casually kills thousands of people all   the time with drones so while this would be a  worst case scenario we cannot entirely rule out   the possibility but such an extreme worst case  scenario of barbarism might not even be necessary   if resources turn out to be abundant the  ruling class may be able to buy off the working   class for longer while still maintaining their  dominance and various forms of profit extraction   this then begs the question what would a society  with abundant resources vast advanced automation   and a declining need for human labor look  like while still having capitalist hierarchies   this brings us to the next possible future  rentism hierarchy and abundance with the   prospect of widespread automation and abundant  energy a communist society becomes a possibility   but not necessarily an inevitability  who owns the robots will own the world   if both natural resources and labor-saving  technologies are not commonly owned by some sort   of socialist society then they could be easily  monopolized by a small elite even if there is   enough abundance for a communist society to occur  and automation makes human labor less and less   necessary the wealthy elite could still maintain  their political hegemony over the masses and find   tedious ways of extracting profit from them such  as by collecting rents on property and monetizing   access to software services which could be easily  provided universally if they were commonly owned   intellectual property for example could be one of  the main tedious ways in which the wealthy extract   rents from the masses intellectual property rights  don't just allow companies to trademark certain   ideas and restrict access to them but they can  also give intellectual property rights holders   the ability to tell others how to use the copies  of their idea that they now legally own take for   example a special 3d printer exists or a certain  type of robot which can produce commodities or   agricultural products if such means of production  are not commonly owned but are instead owned by   private capitalists those private capitalists  could restrict access to those 3d printers and   robots through intellectual property which would  not only force people to pay for a license to   use them but it would also allow the original  owners to control how anyone else uses them   not only would this reinforce the hegemony of the  ruling elite but it could also potentially stifle   innovation and productivity because if such  labor-saving technologies were commonly owned   and not just used for profit then we could do a  lot more with them and more people could benefit   from them while rantism and intellectual property  already exists in capitalist societies today   a system that is no longer based so much  on wage labor and continuous reinvestment   to achieve higher economic growth would look  something a little bit different to capitalism   economists like Yanis Varoufakis for example  argue that capitalism is transforming into what he   calls neo-feudalism as inequality is reaching past  feudalism levels and the ruling class are getting   wealth not just from direct profits but more  and more from rents for example companies like   microsoft google and facebook don't make money  just by selling commodities made by wage labor   they simply charge money for access to services  which could be easily maintained at a zero   marginal cost facebook and google essentially  collect rents from companies looking to advertise   on their platform by selling users  data to companies who will pay for it   you could say the same about internet companies  like verizon and atnt so even in a society with   widespread automation and abundant resources that  could allow a post-scarcity society to flourish   capitalists could easily reintroduce scarcity  through intellectual property law and other means   to an extent this problem has already been  impeding the world's ability to deal with the   global covid pandemic it is no surprise that  billionaires like bill gates strongly oppose   weaving vaccine patents because companies like  microsoft already make a great deal of their   fortune from intellectual property with widespread  automation and less jobs to go around capitalist   societies would essentially have to introduce  some form of universal basic income that would   allow us to consume stuff and let's assume that  this universal basic income was somewhat generous   and we had more free time from work than  we normally do which would be a good thing   however the rentus elite could still colonize  our leisure time in order to extract free labor   facebook and google essentially already do this   economists like janice varufarkis argue that  we should be texting google and facebook to   fund a modest universal basic income as after  all these companies make money from our data   that being said maintaining a semi-capitalist rent  is society that is based on artificial scarcity   and significantly high unemployment would  probably not be very sustainable for long   some theorists out there think that capitalism's  tendency towards automation might bring about its   own demise for instance books like jeremy rifkin's  zero marginal cost society and paul mason's   post-capitalism hypothesized that eventually due  to automation and labor-saving technologies like   3d printing many goods and services will be able  to be produced at such low costs that capitalism   will experience a declining rate of profit to  the point where capitalism just won't make sense   of course this viewpoint is a little  bit determinist and even utopian   and it overlooks the problem of artificial  scarcity and the fact that to truly utilize   the full potential of labor-saving technologies  we need a fundamental change in our political   order from a capitalist one to a socialist one a  rentest semi-capitalist society can only persist   as long as people accept the legitimacy  of its governing hierarchy it depends on   whether the power of ideology would be strong  enough to get people to accept the status quo   or perhaps people would start to ask why the  wealth of resources technologies knowledge and   culture is being limited by restrictive laws  artificial scarcity and arbitrary hierarchies   without the blindfold of neoliberal ideology  it would become evident that a post-scarcity   communist world is possible before imagining what  a post-scarcity communist world could look like   we should consider what a socialist  society with scarcity could look like socialism egalitarianism and scarcity   what if labor-saving technologies are  able to drastically reduce the amount of   necessary labor time while on the other hand  energy and resources were to become scarce   it's possible that natural resources like iron  lithium cobalt water and many more will become   increasingly scarce and it is not a guarantee  that space exploration will be able to find more   plus climate change threatens to wreak havoc  on the world's food system causing droughts and   floods that could seriously threaten agriculture  unlike the highly dystopian society of exterminism   discussed earlier things could look very different  in a socialist society in this society the need   to oppress the working class disappears but the  need to manage scarcity still remains this would   inevitably require some form of economic  planning preferably one that is democratic   if you want to understand how economic planning  works and why it does work i highly recommend   checking out the book called the people's  republic of walmart but with the technological   advancements we have today particularly in  the field of cybernetics and quantum computing   economic planning is more possible than ever  while planning the entire economy probably won't   be necessary desirable or even possible planning  certain aspects of the economy that are scarce and   in high demand will be vital a climate catastrophe  would probably require global coordination as well   a completely localist approach to socialism  would be very difficult and arguably unrealistic   theorists like slavoy zizek have advocated for  global economic planning which he argues will   also be necessary for combating  potential virus pandemics   in this third future of socialism with scarcity  then people no longer have to work nearly as   much just to survive yet people are also  not free to consume as much as they like   and even though capitalistic economic classes will  be presumably abolished some kind of government   will probably be required to distribute resources  making pure communism a stateless society   an unlikely option given the need to determine and  maintain stable levels of consumption and thus set   prices the state can't entirely weather away  just yet as it does in that communist scenario   and where there is scarcity there will surely be  some sort of political conflict even though if it   is no longer the same class conflict however this  form of socialism does not have to adopt the exact   same systems as previously existing socialist  countries did we can learn from the drawbacks   and the benefits in addition to being sabotaged  by catastrophic wars and economic sanctions   experiments like the ussr yugoslavia cuba vietnam  and china started off with significantly lower   levels of development and did not have the access  to the technology that exists today facing this   underdevelopment these countries resorted to  modes of production that could be described as   capitalistic while having some form of socialist  redistribution despite this however these systems   were nevertheless able to drastically improve  their societies just look at the development   from before versus after their transition to  socialism if you even want to call it socialism   which is more a matter of semantic debate the  point is that different socio-economic conditions   lead to different outcomes after all marx himself  thought that communism would be impossible without   first passing through the stage of capitalism  which he saw as a necessary evil that would   exploit workers to death but would develop the  forces of production and create a lot of wealth   which could then be distributed and utilized for  the common good during the transition to communism   with the exception of the exploited global south  most of the global north countries like america   canada and western europe are already highly  developed and we are starting to have access   to labor civic technologies which can accelerate  production while giving people more free time from   work which could potentially one day allow us  to transition to the fourth and most promising   future communism an egalitarian society with  abundance but as mentioned before if a worsening   climate crisis and disappointing results of space  exploration make this possibility too late then   we can settle for a socialism where we are given  life's basic necessities and more freedom from   work but still have a limitation as to how much  we can consume maybe it won't be fully automated   luxury communism but maybe we can get a partially  automated socialism but assuming resources are not   scarce and climate change is slightly ameliorated  or we happen to find an abundance of natural   resources in outer space then let's envision what  a full communism with abundance could look like   communism egalitarianism and abundance it is  already hard to escape the capitalist mind   prison but it is even harder to imagine what full  communism could look like the term fully automated   luxury communism has been popularized by theorist  aaron bastiani in his book of the same title   this book deserves a video of its own and it has  quite a lot of compelling insights and evidence   despite what the goofy title might suggest  this might all sound like an impossible utopian   yet the trend of widespread automation could very  well make this a possibility or at the very least   allow us to start liberating people from work  we can try to envision a classless society of   abundance that was envisioned by theorists like  karl marx a partially automated communism perhaps   a communist post-scarcity society would require a  combination of labor-saving technologies with an   alternative to the current unsustainable  energy system that still exists today which   is limited by the physical scarcity and  ecological destructiveness of fossil fuels   once again this is not a guarantee but there are  hopeful signs of progress for instance the cost of   producing and operating solar panels has been  falling dramatically over the past decade and   based on their current trajectory they will soon  be cheaper than our current electricity sources   now the notion of post work tends to confuse a  lot of people people often think about this issue   in a very binary way in which either we live in a  society where we don't work at all or we work in a   society where we have to work just to survive and  be entitled to life's basic necessities and this   really misses the point in a post-scarcity society  it's not like all work would be abolished in the   sense that we would all just sit around like  sloths as karl marx put it labor would become not   only a means of life but life's prime want people  could just continue doing whatever activities   hobbies and projects that they did out of their  own will because they found them inherently   fulfilling not because of a needed wage the profit  motive is unnecessary especially considering   the degree to which many decisions about work  are already driven by non-material incentives   among those who are privileged enough to have  the option millions choose to go to graduate   school study degrees with little job prospects  become social workers make music make art   or start small organic farms even when there  are far more lucrative careers open to them   it is also worth noting that even this  post-scarcity communist future would most   likely still require some sort of human labor  for certain occupations that can't be automated   we would most likely have to have a certain level  of labor hours to complete in exchange for labor   vouchers which could then be used to purchase  leisure products and services provided by small   worker cooperatives perhaps those who put in more  labor time could get access to more labor vouchers   which they could then use to purchase more goods  and services thus while arbitrary economic classes   would be abolished there would not be an equality  of outcome which is essentially impossible rather   society would be formulated according to need  and ability from each according to his ability   to each according to his needs although there  are many possible ways to allocate the necessary   labor that a communist society would still need  to do i would recommend looking into the various   theories of michael albert and paul cockshot who  hold different compelling ideas anyhow outlining   the specific workings of a full communist  post-scarcity future is beyond the scope of this   video and it will be a project that we will talk  about in a future video series on post-capitalism   which won't be for a while due to the rigorous  amount of research that will be needed   the demise of wage labor may seem like a far  away dream today but at one point american and   european labor movements used to demand shorter  working hours as opposed to just higher wages   and employment workerism and the protestant work  ethic is an ideology that must be overcome to get   past wage labor economically we must get past it  socially the idea of post-scarcity communism has   been loosely represented in one of the most  popular works of science fiction star trek   now keep in mind even a post-scarcity communist  world would still have its own conflicts and   contradictions rather than one in which we all  live in perfect harmony and politics comes to a   halt there would probably be some sort of social  hierarchies probably based on reputation and clout   but if it's not a vision of a perfect society  this version of communism is at least a world in   which conflict is no longer based on arbitrary  classes and control over scarce resources and   the means of production it is a world in  which not everything is decided by money   to conclude these four different futures are  useful to speculate about but we might not   necessarily only get one of them we could get  them all and the author of the book for futures   notes that there are paths that lead from one  future to all the others and in many ways aspects   of all four of the futures are already partially  here but it's ultimately up to us the masses to   build up the collective power and organization  to fight for the futures that we desire   if you enjoyed this video and want to see  more unique content like this please consider   supporting us on patreon thanks very much to  the patrons who have supported me thus far   also i would highly recommend checking out the  for futures book by peter freys which this video   was essentially based on links in the description  it's an excellent read highly recommend buying it   see you in the next video you

2021-10-16 21:01

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