I've just finished this book. It's an interesting read, and I suggest you guys give it a try.
Here's a short, three-points summary I wrote:
• The modern Left is trapped in a cult of horizontality and particularism whose end result is powerless disengagement and a lack of broad demands - "folk politics". It refuses to tackle the task of building an actual counter-hegemony to the neo-liberal order, which came about precisely because its proponents had no objection to leading a march through the institutions. What is much needed is a willingness to redefine what our future should look like and to put forward renewed imaginaries.
• Universal basic income is a "non-reformist reform" that radically reconfigures how we relate to labor. Not only is it a social good that imbues people with the power to make real life choices and to mobilize their free time to learn and organize, it is also an economic necessity as technological unemployment will ultimately make everyone part of a vast social surplus. It follows that automation is not to be reviled as a cause for job loss but encouraged as a mean to decrease our reliance on menial work.
• The biggest obstacle to the emergence of a post-work society is not its financial unfeasibility. Most research points to the opposite and it is highly likely a combination of increased progressive taxation, cuts on corporate subsidies and reorganization of existing welfare services would be a sufficient starting point. What truly stands in its path are the politically organized interests of the capitalist ruling class and the culturally pervasive submission of the citizenry to the so-called work ethic.
whats it saying different than le my resource based zeitgeist may may?
in a full automated world whoever controls the machines will control the world (much more easly than today)
William Miller
I was very struck by this when I first read it (although I was going through a bit of an accelerationist phase until I read Benjamin Noy's critique of it, which I'd also recommend).
The first point is correct, and why I'm still a vanguardist. It ties quite nicely into 'Crowds and Party' by Jodie Dean if you haven't seen that one yet.
UBI is an interesting idea, but there's good criticisms of it to (principally that if we've gotten to the stage where we can give people a good standard of living for doing nothing, why aren't we just advancing to full communism instead?).
Third is sort of true, although there's nothing wrong with working, so long as you actually enjoy what you do. I'm a carpenter by trade, and really do enjoy the process of creating things.
I've got this book sitting on my shelf. Maybe I should read it this weekend. I don't see anything wrong with that except Not really. It supplements income from working, it doesn't replace it. I don't know anyone who could survive on the suggested income, eg. RSA in the UK suggested that for a 25-64 year old UBI could be £3692 – £72 a week.
Aaron Wood
How is "universal basic income" actually supposed to work? What stops the few remaining workers supporting everyone else from fleeing or killing themselves?
Easton Turner
If that were the case, then UBI would indeed be a terrible idea. However, a truly universal BASIC income implies that there is enough to survive on; it's just that libertarians have tried to co-opt the idea by using it as a bludgeon against welfare and transforming it into a thinly-veiled system of corporate subsidies. The book discusses this issues, so I think you'd definitely find it interesting.
What do you means by "the few remaining workers"? It has been consistently shown that the introduction of UBI actually increases economic activity in many areas. Besides, automation is likely to gradually, eventually replace these so-called "few remaining workers" anyway.
Leo Nelson
Agree with your third response. I've never understood the criticisms of work and labor as such - isn't the point of Marxist thought that labor is in fact essential to one's own existence and full lived experience as a human being, and only when ones labor becomes captive to and appropriated by the capitalist class does it become hateful?
Luke Anderson
It's a pretty good book. The stuff on folk politics and the state of the left is the best part, I think. It's important to note that while the authors think UBI has revolutionary potential, they also believe it needs to supplement the welfare state, not replace it.
I think if we ever do see UBI take off in the US and places in Europe, it will precede the cancellation of welfare programs. At that point, assuming it's about 10-12k a year, people will be using it to supplement their healthcare costs and nothing more.
Ryder Hill
I'm not sure why you construe the introduction of an UBI as a de facto vilification of productive activity. As you say, one of the most interesting parts of it is that it precisely frees our labor from the shackles of capitalist appropriation. I know for a fact that I'd be more productive within the context of a guaranteed UBI than I would in that of income insecurity.
Mason Turner
I wasn't referring to the UBI or anything in this thread, just a larger maybe poorly read refrain I frequently hear from automists about work and labor being inherently degrading, which runs counter to anything Marx ever said. I'd have to think more on the implementation of a UBI, particularly outside the context of worker ownership - doesn't that in some regards just further alienate the worker further from his labor, especially if it's being used within the purely reformist project and continuing to obscure the actual value of what ones produced in a day?
What do you guys think of this critique of the book?
Carter Long
Does this book tie into their accelerationism? I honestly don't like that accelerationist claptrap.
Gabriel White
This. But yeah UBI is a very radical reform, and its transitional in that in order for UBI to be financially possible for the state, serious changes will have to occur; such as massive high-income or corporate taxes, or even nationalization of industries.
Robert Rivera
From what I've understood from the book, not at all. The whole point of "Inventing the Future" is that we need to build a leftist counter-hegemony, not let the current capitalist hegemony aggravate.
Ian Cook
How do you suppose hegemony is gained? Be a materialist about this; ideological power comes from material power. He who controls the base, controls the superstructure.
Noah Garcia
Does someone who controls/exerts influence on the superstructure influence the base?
Angel Jackson
Depends if you're a vulgar Marxist or not.
Kayden Harris
It does rather, it's just not explicitly an accelerationist manifesto (given he's already written one). The point of Left Accelerationism is that you harness technological change rather than just letting it occur on it's own (Right Accelerationism).
Tyler Campbell
Who do you think possibily has control of the superstructure, but does not have control of the base?
To have influence in the superstructure IS having influence at the base
Chase Nelson
Read some Althusser mate.
Carson Smith
I have, not much though. What in particular should I read? Where does he somehow demonstrate that it's possible to remove yourself from material reality and have hegemonic influence of ideas without having any economic or political power? How can this entirely ahistorical unprecedented event possibly happen?
Carter Torres
Reading Capital & On the Materialist Dialectic.
He explains it far better than I could.
Samuel Gutierrez
cont.
But insofar as I'm aware, there's a dialectical relationship between the base and superstructure, rather than a purely determinist one.
Joshua Fisher
Well that there is two way causal influence (absolute butchery of Hegel and Marx both to use the word dialectic to just mean circularly-causal) between base and superstructure is nothing new from Althusser, and doesn't contradict the point made in
Caleb Ward
That's not what I mean here. There was a course on it I took several years ago where the prof made this point, but again I'm not going to be able to express it particularly eloquently if you don't read the book.
Connor Cook
read gramsci
Samuel Perry
Because "Communism" means advancing to Communism. It's a process, not a state.
Colton Scott
But again, UBI implies private control over the means of production (otherwise, why not pursue full employment in a planned economy?).
UBI is classic Left-Reformism, not revolutionary.
Connor Parker
Stopped reading when author called libertarians left.
That's not exactly Materialist.
Yes. Everyone influences everyone. The base simply has more influence. Marxism is non-binary.
I don't think it implies.
Explain. Soviets went with full employment due to external reasons (as well as necessity to industrialize extremely fast).
Cooper Hernandez
Okay will read that Althusser then. And again, I have read some Gramsci - which texts in particular do you think make my understanding wrong?
How is this not a materialist analysis?
Brandon Moore
I'm not that guy (and I'm not particularly fond of Gramsci) but he covers the topic in the prison notebooks afaik.
Then again, he does argue that the base still influences both civil and political society, it's just that they are more autonomous than Marx argued, and can be influenced by working class movements and intellectuals.
Noah Barnes
But what's the point? If we've gained power and are able to start giving people a good wage for no work, why not start deconstructing the whole wage system and building an entirely new economic system?
Sorry, but surely full employment is preferable to accepting the current status quo where 10-25% of the population will be unemployed, and they should just be categorised as lumpen and given some sort of benefits (or UBI).
Socialism isn't just about giving people enough to live comfortably, it's a project to totally transform humanity. Work does have value, even just in terms of building confidence, self-esteem, etc.
Robert Reed
Elaborate on this. I'm for full employment for price stability and the counter cyclic nature of an employer of last resort policy but I don't get what point you're trying to make.
For instance, UBI is considered to be a measure against the projected(and very real if you carefully look at the data) technological unemployment. Why would a planned economy give up efficiency by employing people when it could simply be a planned economy with a UBI since technological unemployment is still an issue here?
Grayson Campbell
Obviously there is room for the working class to influence the superstructure, how else might socialism ever be possible, but the whole point is that what "influencing the superstructure" even means is to gain influence in the base. To gain economic, material leverage in order to get any ideas out in the first place.
The idea that someone could have any sway over the ideas of society without having real material power in the base is ludicrous. These Frankfurt school types themselves understood this; they understood that these ideas had to come from existing institutions and structures of real material influence in the world, universities etc. Having a position there, a platform by which to get your ideas out there as part of legitimate cultural ideology, is a position of power in relation to the base. These ideas gain legitimacy only by being espoused by the very same mouths that control the base, by the universities and theorists that global capital owns and controls.
Oliver Kelly
To me the UBI is transitionary and allows people to work in a creative way outside of the economy, if they choose to do so it's up to them. With a socially inclusive wage they would be able to embark on their own projects too and even group together around them.
I imagine that a good amount of people would set up competitions and just generally be having so much fun work becomes a meaningless expedient for our mental and physical energies, though.
This is part of the point of a UBI over a full employment policy since you don't really need to be at work to be creative.
Jaxon Allen
That's an extremely broad characterisation of what constitutes the economic base. If you take that, sure everything's the base.
Nathaniel Adams
Seriously, just the prospect of life long study makes me prefer UBI over full employment.
I would be in heaven.
John James
Ideas cannot fully explain material world. All theories will eventually prove false or incomplete and will require amendments. I.e. all ideas are useable only in a specific context and there are no universal thruths.
This is what Materialism (as opposed to Idealism) means in Marxist discourse. Not "ideological power comes from material power" (while true, it is hardly "materialist analysis").
And this is why Materialism rejects religions: they provide Final Answers. Not because of something supernatural.
Point of what? UBI? Give everyone a basic standard of living.
There is no need to "deconstruct" anything, unless it is actively trying to murder you. You build new structure, it proves to be more efficient than the old, the old withers away.
At least, that's how it goes for ML.
But we are not talking about it. Status quo is not the only alternative.
No. Socialism is explicitly about living comfortably. It's Communism that also wants to advance progress (and considers Socialism to be the best tool). And even Communism does not seek to forcibly transform anything (unless it is trying to murder you - see above).
I didn't deny that. It is however absolutely irrelevant to the discussion.
The point is that lazy life and UBI are not antithetical to Socialism (or Communism). In some circumstances Socialist state might (rightfully) demand full employement (basically, conscripting every citizen) - as it happened in USSR, but it is not inherent in Socialism.
