The near future

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

I'm not good at long posts, I just want to launch a discussion.

I decided to rewatch a few of CGP gray and one of them was Humans need not apply (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU) and it got me thinking about what will happen until we reach there and when.

Some theories and doubts:
-Will the bourgeoisie sooner or later notice that if robots replace most labor it's more likely the proletarian will turn on them (more free time, more knowledge, more class consciousness I assume) and start the revolution and thus will start being against progress to delay it?

-On the other hand since they have the power (robots) will the bourgeoisie use it to oppress even more the lower classes? Is it dangerous to wait until they have really powerful ways to exert control? Maybe even create a dystopia but that seems unlikely and too much sci-fi.
Most likely they will keep the most benefits and luxury but lower classes will still have a good life with all basic necessities secured, but if so, it's just a matter of time until class consciousness.

-What reforms will happen meanwhile? I'd say basic income and shorter work hours seems the most likely, and what consequences will that bring?

Millennials might not live to see a full post scarcity economy, but I'm sure we'll be here to see a transactional period, probably not communism (I'm not optimistic), but a different type of capitalism, it will have do adapt but it will soon run out of 'adaptations'.

[Aslan]

I doubt that robots are cheaper than a $1/hr Chinese worker. People in nations like China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia are practically slaves! The only thing expensive about it is transport. We've seen what happens when mode of production changes have done to make our post-industrial western world. The people will migrate to places where work is available. And anyone left will have to adapt.

Climate change is probably the worst problem we will face. Estimates of population displacement range up to 750 million people displaced. Now where do you think all these people will go?
Capitalism will be in a major crisis in the years to come. Don't listen to those conspiracy theorists cry wolf. Marx said that one day a capitalist crisis will occur, its designed to do that. And our society will likely face a migrant crisis that will make the current one look like a drop in the bucket.

Let me give you an example:
Bangladesh has a population of 168,957,745 while most of it's lands are only a few meters above sea level. Where do you think these people will go? They will crowd around in anywhere they can find. Millions of people with no home wandering around India, a nation with an active ultra-nationalist government. That seems like a recipe for disaster. What About the Nile delta, which is only a few meters above sea level and holds 90% of Egypt's population? Or even Holland, which is in some places below sea level.

I mean COME ON! its currently 23°C (73°F) here! And its practically December!

[motion denied]

The capitalists cannot replace all living labour with dead labour, unless they want capitalism to collapse unto itself. Robots don't buy anything, they do not consume goods - and we know the realisation of the commodity is of crucial importance. Moreover, robots don't generate value, thus making the M-C-M' cycle impossible.

However, as the infamous quote goes:


Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth. Hence it diminishes labour time in the necessary form so as to increase it in the superfluous form; hence posits the superfluous in growing measure as a condition – question of life or death – for the necessary. On the one side, then, it calls to life all the powers of science and of nature, as of social combination and of social intercourse, in order to make the creation of wealth independent (relatively) of the labour time employed on it. On the other side, it wants to use labour time as the measuring rod for the giant social forces thereby created, and to confine them within the limits required to maintain the already created value as value. Forces of production and social relations – two different sides of the development of the social individual – appear to capital as mere means, and are merely means for it to produce on its limited foundation. In fact, however, they are the material conditions to blow this foundation sky-high

The shortening of the work hours are a myth. We could already be working much, much less (well, probably not 'working' at all if you're in the work vs labour crew). Why we're not? Why has the intensity of work only augmented? Because we are merely tools, moments in the process of capital self-valorisation. Capital cannot live unless it's permanently expanding itself, it's a tautological, uncontrollable and endless movement. The combination of absolute and relative surplus-value is representative of this: pushing the work hours until some limit (determined, grosso modo, by law/health of the workers* and class struggle) as well as diminishing the time necessary for the reproduction of the labour force.


* It has more to do with state regulation of the workforce, i.e., the state establishing the right conditions of capital accumulation than with 'o poor workers should get some rest'.

[tuwix]

-Will the bourgeoisie sooner or later notice that if robots replace most labor it's more likely the proletarian will turn on them (more free time, more knowledge, more class consciousness I assume) and start the revolution and thus will start being against progress to delay it?


The system has accommodated for that much time ago. Likely after the greater crisis. States started to create bureaucratic only to maintain employment on level that doesn't allow revolution. The problem is only neoliberal ideology which is against that.



-What reforms will happen meanwhile? I'd say basic income and shorter work hours seems the most likely, and what consequences will that bring?


It depends on what protests they will face. They can agree to many things when they feel to be endangered...

[reviscom1]

Capitalism has about ten years left in Europe. Then it will be replaced by something aki to Communism.

It is only Social Democracy that has kept Capitalism afloat this long - as it has provided workers with advanced state services and employment rights.

However, Social Democracy is now becoming unaffordable under a Capitalist system - because Capitalism concentrates too much of the available wealth in too few hands.

We are seeing this in action at the moment with all the debates over austerity (as it is called in the UK). Currently the ruling classes are under the illusion that they can make Social Democracy affordable by trimming it of inefficiencies. They cannot.

Eventually (soon) they will realise that they have a choice between ending Social Democracy or ending Capitalism.

If they try the former it will end in revolution.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

I doubt that robots are cheaper than a $1/hr Chinese worker. People in nations like China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia are practically slaves! The only thing expensive about it is transport. We've seen what happens when mode of production changes have done to make our post-industrial western world. The people will migrate to places where work is available. And anyone left will have to adapt.

Climate change is probably the worst problem we will face. Estimates of population displacement range up to 750 million people displaced. Now where do you think all these people will go?
Capitalism will be in a major crisis in the years to come. Don't listen to those conspiracy theorists cry wolf. Marx said that one day a capitalist crisis will occur, its designed to do that. And our society will likely face a migrant crisis that will make the current one look like a drop in the bucket.

Let me give you an example:
Bangladesh has a population of 168,957,745 while most of it's lands are only a few meters above sea level. Where do you think these people will go? They will crowd around in anywhere they can find. Millions of people with no home wandering around India, a nation with an active ultra-nationalist government. That seems like a recipe for disaster. What About the Nile delta, which is only a few meters above sea level and holds 90% of Egypt's population? Or even Holland, which is in some places below sea level.

I mean COME ON! its currently 23°C (73°F) here! And its practically December!
Source for time frame for the climate change population displacement?

The capitalists cannot replace all living labour with dead labour, unless they want capitalism to collapse unto itself. Robots don't buy anything, they do not consume goods - and we know the realisation of the commodity is of crucial importance. Moreover, robots don't generate value, thus making the M-C-M' cycle impossible.

However, as the infamous quote goes:



The shortening of the work hours are a myth. We could already be working much, much less (well, probably not 'working' at all if you're in the work vs labour crew). Why we're not? Why has the intensity of work only augmented? Because we are merely tools, moments in the process of capital self-valorisation. Capital cannot live unless it's permanently expanding itself, it's a tautological, uncontrollable and endless movement. The combination of absolute and relative surplus-value is representative of this: pushing the work hours until some limit (determined, grosso modo, by law/health of the workers* and class struggle) as well as diminishing the time necessary for the reproduction of the labour force.


* It has more to do with state regulation of the workforce, i.e., the state establishing the right conditions of capital accumulation than with 'o poor workers should get some rest'.
That's the reason for basic income, keeping everyone above poverty level so they keep consuming, but no one except their own class with access to luxury.
The intensity of work has augmented? Where? Source? I do think it hasn't been shortened has it should lately, but augmented? I doubt it.

Capitalism has about ten years left in Europe. Then it will be replaced by something aki to Communism.

It is only Social Democracy that has kept Capitalism afloat this long - as it has provided workers with advanced state services and employment rights.

However, Social Democracy is now becoming unaffordable under a Capitalist system - because Capitalism concentrates too much of the available wealth in too few hands.

We are seeing this in action at the moment with all the debates over austerity (as it is called in the UK). Currently the ruling classes are under the illusion that they can make Social Democracy affordable by trimming it of inefficiencies. They cannot.

Eventually (soon) they will realise that they have a choice between ending Social Democracy or ending Capitalism.

If they try the former it will end in revolution.
What? 10 years Communism? that's incredibly naive. You're right about the rest, but don't underestimate capitalism capacity to adapt itself.