Capitalist Utopia

[Zealot]

Imagine for a moment that a revolution never happened, robotisation of the workforce and democracy was eventually achieved using capitalism. Would that have made the communist struggle futile and would the people then consider it to be a "miracle" of capitalism?

[Tommy4ever]

Not going to happen.

That would be a miracle of science? No? Just because a scientific achievement happens under a certain economic system doesn't make it an achievement of that system. By that logic space flight is a miracle of the Soviet system, rocketry of fascism and the atom bomb of capitalism.

In this imaginary society in which machines make labour redundant, what would people do for a living? If there was to be no more wage labour this society would cease to be capitalist and become something new.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Capitalism is a for-profit system.

Thus, under Capitalism, robotisation of the workforce is not in the working classes interest, because it will not be met with a commensurate level of compensation.

[CommunityBeliever]

democracy was eventually achieved using capitalism. I think it would make more sense to imagine pink fluffy unicorns on rainbows.

[gendoikari]

Capitalism is a for-profit system.

Thus, under Capitalism, robotisation of the workforce is not in the working classes interest, because it will not be met with a commensurate level of compensation.

yup it will be met with a welfare state and an economy that is barely still living.... which would quickly turn revolutionary.... and give birth to communism.

so in a way it would be utopian.... because the capitalists would crumble and communism would be born.

[Judicator]

In this imaginary society in which machines make labour redundant, what would people do for a living? If there was to be no more wage labour this society would cease to be capitalist and become something new.

What did people do when the 40 hour workweek become standard? Consume more leisure. When robots take over we will all have tons of leisure time and minimal "labor"....maybe some salaried work and that's it. The amount of human time+capital required to grow food and supply basic needs will approach 0...so the cost of buying these things will also approach 0.

[Agent Equality]

capitalism will always create a dystopia and nothing more.

[Judicator]

capitalism will always create a dystopia and nothing more.

Haters gonna hate and nothing more.

[La Comédie Noire]

What did people do when the 40 hour workweek become standard? Consume more leisure. When robots take over we will all have tons of leisure time and minimal "labor"....maybe some salaried work and that's it. The amount of human time+capital required to grow food and supply basic needs will approach 0...so the cost of buying these things will also approach 0.

The shorter work week came about as a direct result of struggle on the part of organized labor, if capitalists had their way we'd still be working 16 and 18 hour days, which a lot of people still do by the way, though off the books or by having 2 or three different jobs.

I think John Stewart Mills said it best when he said "It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being." Implementing machinery under Capitalism is not about creating more leisure time, it is about increasing profits by gaining an advantage in the market and squeezing more surplus value out of a laborer in a shorter amount of time. Although as Marx pointed out, that advantage is woefully short lived.

You actually have a Marxist understanding of what technology does, but cannot fathom such an arrangement, that is abundance, changing the social relations between men. Capitalism was a system forged in scarcity, therefore in order to survive it must recreate scarcity. If anything the capitalist class would just hold us back from abundance.

[Zealot]

Not going to happen.

That would be a miracle of science? No? Just because a scientific achievement happens under a certain economic system doesn't make it an achievement of that system. By that logic space flight is a miracle of the Soviet system, rocketry of fascism and the atom bomb of capitalism.

But people tend to do this, I'm sure you've seen it before.


In this imaginary society in which machines make labour redundant, what would people do for a living? If there was to be no more wage labour this society would cease to be capitalist and become something new.

That's the point, there would be no work. Of course it would cease to be capitalist and that's why I was wondering, when it does that, people may blindly think that it was a capitalist miracle.

[RGacky3]

What did people do when the 40 hour workweek become standard? Consume more leisure. When robots take over we will all have tons of leisure time and minimal "labor"....maybe some salaried work and that's it. The amount of human time+capital required to grow food and supply basic needs will approach 0...so the cost of buying these things will also approach 0.

Only if the production by "robots" belongs to everyone, if the "robots" are owned by capitalists they'll use it obviously for their benefit, and the people who are out of work and out of luck get screwed.

It only benefits society if its controlled by society.


What did people do when the 40 hour workweek become standard? Consume more leisure.

Thanks to unions btw. 40 hour workweek did'nt come about through technology.

[LancashireLenin]

So who would own the machines that run the economy? The capitalists. The ordinary people who in other systems would be the proletariat would get no say in how that society is run, what is produced, how environments are treated etc.

The question is: Is a system where a few who own machines control the economy, and therefore society, a Utopia to you?

[RGacky3]

Actually we have a historical precident for this Utopia, its ancient Rome when the empire started.

The new "machines" were slaves, meaning farms could be run without wage labor by roman citizens, infact there was so much slave labor that there was an abundance of food, except now these slaves ewre doing the labor so there was no need to pay roman citizens a wage to work the farm, sounds great right? (taking the slaves opinion out of it obviously).

Well what happened, the former wage workers moved to the city and scraped for manufacturing jobs, or craftsmen jobs, but most were unemployed and destitute, and reliant on welfare payments from the state, basically it created a huge underclass.

I get its not a perfect comparison because I'm talking about slaves rather than machines but the point stands.

with new technology you need socialization for it to benefit society.