Denigration of the lumpenproleteriat… Those most excluded from the system are best able to imagine life beyond and outside it and build support networks not based in capitalism.
Putting (some) of the workers in charge of the means of production doesn’t solve the problems, it merely ameliorates them for a while a new ruling class emerges from the revolutionary vanguard while switches places with the previous ruling class.
Also glorifies work as an absolute moral good, when it’s long past time to be winding it down as automation takes the load. Why the fuck are average working hours going up?
While I agree hours probably shouldn’t be going up, I think there’s a bit of a ratcheting effect at play.
If you take the classic “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, you end up with the question of how you define ‘needs’.
As tech gets better, the standard of care goes up in healthcare - treatments that were ‘impractical’ 20 years ago are now expected standard of care. Same goes for safety and for standard of living. Electric lighting, aircon, floor space, your own bedroom not shared with 3 other kids, TV/telephone/internet. It’s now basically standard in first world countries to fully treat sewage and have aircon on buses - that wasn’t the case 50 years ago.
Every time automation displaces some drudge work, we’ll be able to find something new that technically could be done and would be nice to have. 30 years later people will be screaming bloody murder if that former nice-to-have breaks down.
That’s certainly not to say we’re efficiently using the labour we have.
Denigration of the lumpenproleteriat… Those most excluded from the system are best able to imagine life beyond and outside it and build support networks not based in capitalism.
Putting (some) of the workers in charge of the means of production doesn’t solve the problems, it merely ameliorates them for a while a new ruling class emerges from the revolutionary vanguard while switches places with the previous ruling class.
Also glorifies work as an absolute moral good, when it’s long past time to be winding it down as automation takes the load. Why the fuck are average working hours going up?
While I agree hours probably shouldn’t be going up, I think there’s a bit of a ratcheting effect at play.
If you take the classic “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, you end up with the question of how you define ‘needs’.
As tech gets better, the standard of care goes up in healthcare - treatments that were ‘impractical’ 20 years ago are now expected standard of care. Same goes for safety and for standard of living. Electric lighting, aircon, floor space, your own bedroom not shared with 3 other kids, TV/telephone/internet. It’s now basically standard in first world countries to fully treat sewage and have aircon on buses - that wasn’t the case 50 years ago.
Every time automation displaces some drudge work, we’ll be able to find something new that technically could be done and would be nice to have. 30 years later people will be screaming bloody murder if that former nice-to-have breaks down.
That’s certainly not to say we’re efficiently using the labour we have.