Automation GANG

In Wage Labour and Capital Marx says:

The economists tell us, to be sure, that those laborers who have been rendered superfluous by machinery find new venues of employment. They dare not assert directly that the same laborers that have been discharged find situations in new branches of labor. Facts cry out too loudly against this lie. Strictly speaking, they only maintain that new means of employment will be found for other sections of the working class; for example, for that portion of the young generation of laborers who were about to enter upon that branch of industry which had just been abolished. Of course, this is a great satisfaction to the disabled laborers. There will be no lack of fresh exploitable blood and muscle for the Masters. Capitalists – the dead may bury their dead. This consolation seems to be intended more for the comfort of the capitalists themselves than their laborers. If the whole class of the wage-laborer were to be annihilated by machinery, how terrible that would be for capital, which, without wage-labor, ceases to be capital!

But capital not only lives upon labor. Like a master, at once distinguished and barbarous, it drags with it into its grave the corpses of its slaves, whole hecatombs of workers, who perish in the crises. We thus see that if capital grows rapidly, competition among the workers grows with even greater rapidity – i.e., the means of employment and subsistence for the working class decrease in proportion even more rapidly; but, this notwithstanding, the rapid growth of capital is the most favorable condition for wage-labor

Shouldn't the primary task of communists be then to ensure and accelerate the rate of automation of labour?

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nuh uh the major existing goal is to establish russia as the major global imperial force becuz anti-imperialism

no shitposts pls

Yes.

This has always been an assumption, plain and simple, which befits the role of modern economists as priests. There is no evidence, empirical or theoretical, that guarantees now jobs will open up.

We had some amusing ideas in past threads about automation and UBI about this. The latter, which Porky is already trying to push centuries ahead of time, is a method through which capitalism could survive after full automation, which would otherwise be impossible (barring another proposal yet to be invented, obviously). Well, UBI, by definition, eliminates wage-labor as it eliminates labor, yet the imagined scenario of a fully-automated society with UBI isn't rosy at all. Wealth gap and class immobility would reach unprecedented levels, and basic logic dictates that UBI recipients would receive just enough to survive plus an extra in order to keep the economy growing. The capitalists, meanwhile, will have (presumably hereditary) money-printing machines, and won't ever even have to deal with plebs. So there's no visible exploitation going on; in fact, the UBI-receiving pleb is the most exploitation-free lower class to have ever existed. Yet there's something horribly wrong with this scenario. What gives?

That's because exploitation should not be reduced to surplus-value-squeezing, which requires non-automated jobs to be done by wage-laborers. The exploitation also presupposes an unequal – extremely unequal – distribution of property of the means of production, which is what creates the need for wage-laborers in the first place, as the owners of property can't work all of it itself. In a way, surplus-value is a side effect of the private poperty. After all, no capitalist State worth its salt will openly enforce a law saying plebs should be exploited. No, it will always enforce laws protecting private property, which itself necessarily creates exploitation. Same effect, much more legitimacy to fool the plebs with.

And that leads us to the use of technology, and information in general, in capitalism. Marx thought industrialization was the best thing in forever because it allowed mankind to finally produce enough to provide for everybody, but capitalism was completely fucking things up. So even tho industrialization is an absolute pre-requisite for socialism (at least at a level beyond tribal proto-socialism), it's stillmisused to great effect by Porky. And here's where full automation comes in. After all, it is just the end result of the historical process that began with industrialization, and Porky can, and will, fag it up at any point if he's able to. So much like basic industrialization, full automation can be used to create a better world for everybody, or unlivable hellscapes surrounding tiny bubbles where the capitalists live.

tl;dr: increasing automation all by itself isn't inherently good because capitalism will misuse it regardless, since direct exploitation itself isn't the root cause of the problems of capitalism and Porky finds a way around it. What is needed is full automation under socialism or communism.

(trips)
This has been the most succint mockery of ☭TANKIE☭ mentality I'm yet to see.

Is Marx not saying the exact opposite? That automation does the worker no good but only serves to increase competition between workers?

There you have it folks, become a engineer for the revolution. Starting a company in silicon valley is the most revolutionary thing you can do

Easier said than done. Increasing automation is one the one hand driven by technological advancement, which is unpredictable. Little other you can do to drive that than free universal schooling and generous research grants.
On the other hand, you can, within technological bounds, increase the proportion of fixed capital in the equation, but here also you can only go so far. Every part of the "surplus" of a capital cycle re-invested in more capital is productive labour that is not meeting people's direct needs. Sacrificing the light industry to serve the heavy industries, which is something people will only put up with to a point. Democratic checks seem in order here, because if your productive forces are not serving the people, what the fuck are they for?

This but unironically.

This is a historical fact wtf are you talking about

I agree to a large extent to what you're both saying and these are legitimate concerns and fears of automation. But Is there any benefit in slowing this down or remaining trepid about the consequences. In its current state Capitalism is increasingly fragile, and with every boom and bust, there exists new opportunities to increase the organic composition of capital.

Instead shouldn't we follow , accelerate and try to to seize the opportunity during a chaotic moment of social unrest.

I just want to add that capitalism is already """accelerating""" its own dynamics (for the lack of a better word) anyway, whenever you want it or not and that the "critical support" for the DPRK offered by some anons here and twitter ☭TANKIE☭s who don't speak a word of Korean won't change a thing to that.
We better find a way to take advantage of the increased automation of menial tasks offered by Porky before we all find ourselves without any mean of subsistence and get annihilated by capital, instead of posing as Luddites with edgy red flags.

What Marx explains here is a very basic explanation of only /one/ way in which the rate of profit over time falls, and how over production can cause temporary crisis. Temporary being a key word here, it does not abolish Capitalism alone.

In regards to the rate of profit, Marx explains in vol 3 of Capital the methods used by Capitalism to increase the rate of profit as well, so it's not just something that continually goes on in the same way, it fluctuates and adapts.

Capitalism simply getting more automation will not, by itself, destroy Capitalism. Capitalism will of course though fall due to internal problems but it's way way more complicated than just the rate of profit and automation fucking it up a little.

A fully automated world would still be capitalist. It’s just that wages would be replaced with UBI and the poor would lose any power through strikes and shit to cause direct action. Automation in pre-revolutionary societies is bad.

Automation will happen whenever you like it or not though.
We know it's going to be bad for people who have to sell their labour power in exchange for a living. The question is rather: what will we do about this?, while keeping in mind that Ludditism is pure utopianism.

already doing my part of the job

Automation is what will lead to revolution itself
as has said, the greater the risk the greater the reward.

We seize the means of production and the d of p works to minimize socually necessary labour so we have time to develope our unique and varied abilities.

Automation leads to the revolution? It isnt that simple, tgat would be technological determinism and not dialectical. But closely the contradiction between relations if production and this new mode of production might lead to revolution.

But tech itself wont do it

What's to stop capitalists from just living as god kings in artificial fortresses after having wiped out the majority of the working class and reduced the rest to house slaves? Not to go full alex jones on you but if full automation renders hiring wage laborers unnecessary for the further accumulation of capital. Then capitalists no longer need to maintain the hostile but parasitic relationship they had with the working class. Couldn't they just kill everyone?

you people sicken me

certainly not this board. the board 0wn3xr literally blows the c0k of the 1%. It's literally on video. Communism=slave to the 1%, literally taking the 1%'s cock up their throat.

FASCISM TODAY!

limited automation to where its most useful
maximize peoples job opportunities
these 2 must always exist, guarantees proletariat what they need
by any means necessary
everything else is a unnecessarily complicated

Get out of here capitalist scum.

Not sure if you're trolling but this seems like a rare point of agreement between communists and the red-pill brigade. Evil globalists/capitalists are conspiring to make workers irrelevant or docile slaves so that they can own the world. Pretty much the same idea from both sides isn't it?

mmh, yes indeed my fellow leftist

No. "Globalism" as a conspiracy is retarded. Globalism is in the interest of millions of capitalists. We don't need a secret illuminati to explain why the rulling class want to maximize their profits and protect global trade.

low effort


You know there's a word that people use sometimes to describe when a small group of people with shared interests work together to accomplish something while keeping it secret. It's called a conspiracy. The text of the tpp for instance was kept secret even from most lawmakers. Yes some of this is carried out publicly but there is quite literally a conspiracy.

not trolling.
8ch.net/pol/res/10899332.html#q10899560

You risk creating a porky that can’t be defeated and could have the ability to genocide the prols after porky no longer needs there labor.

Globalism in modified version of Internationalism(almost entirely subverted) to serve Capitalist interests

This is where revolution comes in, I don't doubt for a second that Bill Gates isn't working on some super virus disease 100x worse than the spanish flu right now. Or that Elon Musk isn't developing killer robots etc.

What I'm saying is that how long can the population of people tolerate capitalism? Since we know that what we need full automation for communism, shouldn't we pursue automation regardless of the side effects?

If we were to become luddites, we would be sacrificing a greater amount of the worlds nature resources and ecology based on some fear of what may lay ahead. But fuck it, the world is shit already, millions are dying needless deaths everyday. Our lives aren't anything special. The only thing to do is create conditions so inhospitable in centres of capital that revolution is the only solution.

This will require information, planning, organizing etc to make the proletariat class conscious. And the revolution may be extremely bloody and drawn out etc. But that's life and that's history. If we do nothing we'll all be killed off in 35 years and the planet will be toast, if we accelerate we'll have a chance in some global revolutionary moment on a shorter timeframe.

If this seems like a Faustian bargain - yes it is. But there really isn't any other choice.

Whoops was that flag a mistake or not?

Say tech makes it so that what previously took 100million farmers each 40 hours a week to feed the world can now be done in half the time.

Organized capitalism - half the workers are laid off, porkie doubles profits, a welfare system paid for by the employed workers gives just enough welfare to the unemployed so they dont revolt.

Communism - all the workers keep the same rewards and work 20 hours a week on average.

Isnt that how tech works in the most simplified example?

That's not "communism", that's just full-employment social-democracy.

They own the land and might have voted for this arrangement bc it is now the new socially neccesary labour time.

What would be needed more to call it communism?

How about the abolish of the wage system and production for exchange?

Neither of those thing are happening in my abstraction of the tech developement under communism

Yet the only difference between your example of capitalism and communism is that people work less

If i rewrite it like this:
Capitalism + automation = less workers are paid, the difference goes to capitalists

Communism + automation = less working hours on average, workers material benefits from production are unchanged.

Is that succdem?

OH well yea I guess it would all innovations would be freely spread through the populace and not hidden away by one entity with the goal of getting a leg up on other competing entities.

Yeah the argument is that under capitalism the tech advances benefit capitalists almost exclusively especially in the labour process.

Also im try to imply an agency, bc tech never determines society, economic relation determine society in the last.

Arguably tech has increased the working time of at least the middle class as ppl now must work at home and so forth with the internet

As long as the stick is big enough.

I mean the canard about fired proles just finding new employment like it's no problem, the Invisible Hand shall provide for them, praise be. We all know that Austrian and Chicago cunts, neoliberals and other scum don't actually give a single shit about the fate of any person who was fired.


Well, ultimately, we can't even know for sure if capitalism will end at all, the bastard has been absurdly adaptive. To keep on feeding a hog that will never die nor stop growing can only end badly for whomever is feeding it.

About moments of crisis being opportunities, you're right, but capitalism certainly doesn't require more technology or automation in order to have periodic crises. Has the frequency of capitalist crises increased with time? And if so, has it been demonstrated that it is caused by automation? Unless the answer to both questions is "yes", then pushing for automation won't increase it now. Not to mention that, even if automation does this, increasing the frequency or magnetude of crisis is a moral quandary, seeing as poor people are inevitably the ones who get fucked the most. Wasn't it Nechayev who argued for revolutionaries to help make the lives of the working people as miserable as possible until they finally revolt? Even beside the moral aspect, it seems simplistic.

I agree with minus xir certainty that capitalism will die one day.


Good question. I mentioned amusing ideas we had in previous threads, and that's one of them. Initially, they would still need this huge class of have-nots because, despite completely unproductive, they still consume, and consumption is a fundamental part of the capitalist cycle. And it's exactly to sustain this cycle that UBI would come in. People think it's such a benevolent policy to make sure we good proles don't starve as we're made redundant. But to Giga-Porkies, this wouldn't be charity at all, it would be a necessary investment in order for capitalism to keep going. They would set aside a part of their unmeasurable fortunes and distribute it to the have-nots, who would consume whatever products and services, thus giving back their UBI amount plus profit to the Giga-Porkies. Rinse and repeat. So, capitalists couldn't just terminate the rest of mankind until they come up with some other, cheaper sink for their products. And that's where things get interesting. Pics related.

lol what

I agree but why the capitalists would keep capitalism if they reach post-scarcity?
They would have their robots working for them and providing all they want, some kind of FALC for the bourgeois.
There's also the possibility that technocrats (engineers, programmers, etc.) overthrow capitalists because they would not need them longer too.

BASELES ACCUSATIONS! Fucking commies, they want free shit and are unhappy when given free shit. Fucking commies, how do they work?!? trick question, they don't

So commies just WANT to be presecuted? For fucks sake…there is society and relationships and family and…ugh, fucking commies.

Because they're capitalists. That's what they do. In the thread of those screenshots, someone said it well: they are servants to capital, and will do anything to keep it alive, no matter how irrational or obsolete it becomes. Hell, it already is irrational and obsolete, yet look how things are. Six people have as much wealth as the poorest half of mankind. That's literally more money than anyone could possibly spend in the most decadent things for himself for the entire rest of his life, yet these people want more and will stop at nothing.

As for technocrats, I suppose it's a possibility, but so far they are yet to even begin forming a class. Besides, they might hold all the knowledge Porky will need to keep his distopia running, but he controls the material means. I don't see how they could overthrow capitalists like the latter did with the aristocracy.