The question of technology

[NewLeft]

What role would technology play in a post-capitalist society (assuming that post-capitalism results in some form of anarchism or communism)?

[thefinalmarch]

Production, communications, transportation, entertainment, etc.

So yeah, pretty much exactly whatever role it plays today. Why would its role be any different?

[tfb]

It's role would be different because, instead of automation making the lives of workers worse (by getting them laid off), automation would make it so that workers can either work less or pursue more interesting things, since they would get to benefit from all the saved labour instead of the bourgeoisie.

[ckaihatsu]

It's role would be different because, instead of automation making the lives of workers worse (by getting them laid off), automation would make it so that workers can either work less or pursue more interesting things, since they would get to benefit from all the saved labour instead of the bourgeoisie.


We as a civilization should always be asking ourselves do we want to *be* the machinery, or do we want to be *human* and *use* machinery in functionally supportive ways -- ?

We've already transcended patchworks of warring nations with separate currencies, thanks to / at the human cost of imperialism, but capitalism's gravity-like downward force is proving insurmountable as Europe is on the brink of financially devolving as a currency and as an association. Will there be off-formal-economy benefits to humanity somehow, perhaps because of falling costs, or will this inter-sovereign solvency crisis plunge the world into isolationist nationalisms that are breeding grounds for world-war-type military antagonisms and conquests -- ?

Competitive dynamics do much to spur attentions towards developing technology for *war* purposes -- not directly in humane directions. This will always be the case as long as conflict remains, so then for as long as the nation-state system remains. Only by removing this distraction that diverts away from positive development will we be able to grow a global society that can benefit from its own innovations.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think it's really difficult to talk about "technology" without situating technologies in their particular (socio-historical, etc.) context. Technology, after all, isn't some neutral happening that is "above" or seperate from class struggle or the dynamics of capital. Our particular technology is also largely premised on colonialism, and access, for example, to poisonous rare metals, fosil fuels, etc. Since, presumably, the systemic (and, at times, systematic) violence necessary to procure certain resources will not exist in any sort of authentic communism, we can assume that the "technology" of tomorrow might appear, superficially, "low-tech" from our current perspective. Permaculture, for example, isn't low-tech at all (though it requires very little machinery), in that it requires a specific knowledge, techniques, etc.
When asking what role technology will play, I think we have to consider it in this proper sense (in the words of wikipeda: ". . . knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization . . ."), rather than the crass sense in which it is often used (ie the products of advanced capitalism). Communism, in abolishing the alienation of labour, also abolishes the mystification of technologies, so that the "techniques" of daily life no longer appear as seperate from it.