Abolishing work

[gorillafuck]

I've seen people talk about developing technology to a point where work can be abolished, which to me seems like a good idea if it is feasible. I don't think that's feasible, though. Can it be explained to me in further detail how technology would possibly come to a point where everything (or near everything) could be done without human labour?

[Niccolò Rossi]

Luckily I'm not aware of anyone who claims that in a communist society the advancement and application of technology will do away with human labour. That would be a proposturous position. However, there is an important differance between abolishing work, i.e. alienated labour, and abolishing labour in general.

[Winter]

I dunno, the online documentary, Zeitgeist: Addendum talks about a society where machines do all the work. This Venus Project is introduced, here's there page: http://www.thevenusproject.com/

I'm sure there is a lot of info on a workless society there.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

It might be a little out-of-date and idealistic, but William Morris's Useful Work Vs Useless Toil (http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1884/useful.htm)may be a decent starting point. I'd also recommend looking around prole.info (http://www.prole.info/onlinetexts.html) for more on the subject (especially this text (http://www.prole.info/texts/workfreesociety.html) ;))[/party hack]

[The Vegan Marxist]

I'll just transfer my statement that I made on the thread about robots to here, since it's within relation. And btw, it's not the idea that we can abolish work, in itself, but rather the machines can do away with the boring labors that have been exploited upon the working class & can really decrease the hours within the now-highly induced labor:


Actually, if we were to eliminate the monetary system, then we'd be able to use robotic machines as the working class tool to eliminate long induced labor that was used against workers of the world by capitalist exploiters. The idea that work is a mandatory action is quite detrimental to communist ideology, for we are known as free-willing workers struggling for a better world. A lot of people, especially those that are agrarian-socialists, tend to believe that technology is used to exploit man by the elitist power, but this idea is misleading, for it's not technology that exploits man, nor the worker, but rather it is money.

What we have is not money, but rather technology that is capable of creating limitless beneficial ideas, & resources to create these ideas. Money plays into no part in the either the production or the distribution of said resources & products. Nor is money a logical reason to work. So many like to claim that money is used as an incentive for man to work, but if one wants to use incentives as it's proof of fact, then one has to also point out that money provides incentive to murder, robbery, fraud, etc.

Money puts limitation to what technology we use & how much we use of it. Money puts limitations to ideas & how we use it. And more importantly, money puts limitations to workers & how they live. If we were to eliminate the monetary-system, & rather partake in a resource-based communist society, then we'd not only bring workers-rights back to the people, but we'd also eliminate the very limitations that were brought upon workers in the first place.

When robotic machines come into use, & this is within a monetary-system, robots are not paid, but they continue to produce products through the use of resources because they can, but more importantly, they can produce more & at a much higher time rate. Though, if money was still the law of economics, & if machines were already taken over, then that would mean there'd be a mass unemployment within our midst. So, even though vasts amounts of products will remain in development, people would not be able to afford them because they'd be unemployed & not able to gain money for the use of purchasing any item. So resources would initially be wasted.

When robots become able to take over the boring labors that workers have been forced to take part of, then people would be able to actually do what they want to do, while still work, voluntarily that is, at a much less induced labor rate, & more than likely have fun with it since it would be based on the free-will of what is needed, or for what is necessary. Money is not a reason why people work, it's merely used as a reward to those that work. But, let's say that we'd want to start constructing a new roading infrastructure where traffic laws no longer would be needed. We'd first start designing a programmed traffic system to where cars are tracked through pre-destined mapping programs. Then, we'd program, not the cars, but the tracks themselves on the distance relation between individual cars. This would eliminate traffic accidents, & the pre-programmed roading system would eliminate the need for speeding. No need for seat belts, unless cars were designed to have automatic seat belts that is. So no laws would be needed. And since no money is around anymore, due to the ability of creating such a road system, people might wonder, then what would get these people to want to work if everything is free & there'd be no need to work? Well, like I said, people aren't looking for money, but rather rewardship, & so, wouldn't the idea of having a road system where traffic laws would be completely eliminated a good enough reward for the entire population to bring incentive to actually work for such a project? We have the technology to do this, so why don't we? Money.

Thanks to many studies brought forth, we can be comfortable to the idea of everything being free to distribute to anyone who wants/needs it. Studies that I'm talking about is the fact that, when items become available, free, or legal, then the consumption rate goes down, whereas the consumption becomes high if said items are scarce, not available, or illegal. I would have to thank the studies on marijuana consumption rate for bringing in these facts. A study was made where they found that in the Netherlands, where marijuana is legal, the consumption rate is far lower than the consumption rate in the U.S., where marijuana is illegal. Fact of the matter is that if available, & especially freely available, then there'd be no need to overstock on a product when one can come in get whatever product that is needed at any time s/he wants to.

But yeah, I could go on for a while about this idea, & if one wants, then I'll be happy to keep talking about it, but if you want to hear more on the idea, then you can go & read two articles that I had written about this idea, & even a conversational debate that I had talking about this with a friend of mine, that I so happen had saved:

Why The Monetary System Fails & Where I Stand Because of It (http://www.anonym.to/?http://anarcho-communist.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-monetary-system-fails-where-i-stand.html)

Schooling: A Capitalist Indoctrination (http://www.anonym.to/?http://anarcho-communist.blogspot.com/2009/11/schooling-capitalist-indoctrination.html)

A Conversational Debate On Why The Monetary System Must End! (http://www.anonym.to/?http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=80976199&blogId=522076305)

Red Love & Salutes!

[whore]

i suggest the following articles:
www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/ paul Lafargue the right to be lazy
www.deoxy.org/endwork.htm the abolition of work, i haven't read it all, but looks good.

i linked to those in "advanced theory" as well.

on to your question specifically. two ways to make machines do the work. one is to reduce consumption and "standard of living", which would mean less work for the machines, which would mean it is easier to make machines to do that work.
second is to have quite advanced machines. it is likely down this route that human labor will never be compleatly abolished. however, forthe majority of the population, for the majority of the time, labor could be done by machines. this includes all drudge work, and leave really only interlectual persuits (including designing new machines) to humans.

[The Idler]

Tom Hodgkinson is a notable critic of the idea that technology can abolish work and recommends workers have been deceived in the past into waiting for technology to abolish work.

[Robocommie]

When they invented the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner, it was said they would speed up the pace of household chores such that people would barely have to work at all anymore. And they did speed up the pace of doing chores, but the pace of industrialized life merely sped up with it.

I don't think there's any point in talking about a society with machines that make it unnecessary to work anymore, unless we actually have such machines NOW.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

You'll be long dead before you can even suggest this realistically without getting laughed at.

[Robocommie]

You'll be long dead before you can even suggest this realistically without getting laughed at.

Then we can be zombies suggesting the abolition of labor through robots.

[The Vegan Marxist]

We have robots that can do unnecessary work for humans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtlX8jpT1mQ

Robots have the capabilities in structured, high paced work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5eR0eHknZk&feature=channel

Robots that help make our food, & more than likely be able to distribute as well in a fashionable manner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUSVB2PW1qY&feature=channel

Robots that can help package furniture supplies a lot faster than any human can do so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXyN9ApyJLo&feature=related

Robots that can help clean our houses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pl7R9tLN-M&feature=related

Hell, we even have robots working in hospitals (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/19/robmedical/index.html) for us. So the possibilities are endless.

[gorillafuck]

You'll be long dead before you can even suggest this realistically without getting laughed at.
I agree, I don't think it's feasible.