Breaking up of working class communities- the Boss class and their use of Technology

Like the Luddites, we, the contemporary working class of the UK are yet again under the attack of jobs loses adminstrated by the bosses, well the somewhat constant battle. However unlike the Right says, this isn't exclusively due to immigration. I feel that the critque of the use of technology is far more viable. Also we already know that immigration throughout this and the last century have been used as scapegoats and to disguise authoritarian policy making.
Just in the last two days my local suergy is getting ready to have no people other than GP's working there, and now also my building society is preparing to be run exclusively by computers.
This money saving trick of the ruling class is disjointing the working class and further fragmenting it into the underclass and various other statures of the class structure. Thus making cohesion and community in other class harder to unify. So as revolutionaries, this is a very real problem, yes I know that is in the OI...


I haven't fully made my mind up on this and would like to view other opinions. No, this isn't just some primmie drivel at all.

Here is another view on the suject:

http://deoxy.org/fallofwork.htm

Fuck work. When we'll get the PT rolling, we'll will have a minimum of personnel per project. All that possibly could be automatised should be automatised. That is the best way to bring about social change.

yeah ok, fuck work. However it's all very well you saying that when it isn't you being made redunant or sacked to acommodate machines, which is pretty alot of working people out of work.

Well, why not then reinstitute feudalism? Guaranteed employment until you die. ^^

I am sure that the weavers who destroyed the spinning-mills had it much better than their grandchildren's grandchildren today.

how is that an arguement at all?
fact is, allegedley, that you need the working class for revolution, whereas the use of technology is creating a vaster underclass, which many of this site state have no revolutionary potenial. Also whether you like it or not, the working class needs jobs to get by.

I agree. Technology screws everyone over.

I was considering solar-panels, but decided this would put people out of work.

Instead, I'm now pushing for all-DC power plants on every block to raise employement.

Progress sucks.


just kidding

Conflicting Interestes, do you want to get rid of tractors beause this puts people out of work?

The truth is that the growing pains under technology might affect some, but it allows for increases of production and an economy that will, hopefully, be off the farm and out of the factory in the future.....Just a few years ago, 9/10 people would be out plowing the field today.

Thanks to technology, these jobs were eliminated and we can move on.

no I don't propose that. Instead I advocate the abolishment of the boss class, that puts regular people out of work with thier money saving and all around greed.. Only communities organised by the people are capable to make decisions like putting people out of work, while being able to provide other work for them, if they choose to do it.
I don't give a fuck about progress, if your view of progression is putting some people down so that others can get higher than I absolutely oppose it.

I'm sure you understand the introduction of new technology has an important role in redrawing the division of labor. Virtually any technology brings with it destruction and creation and can radically shift the division of labor. This is known as 'creative destruction.' Schumpeter makes the first reference to it.
An example would be the introduction of the assembly line and automobile and the expansion of related markets and the shrinkage of the horse and buggy business and the shrinkage of its related markets.

But socialists and communists despise the division of labor (and therefore, modern civilization) so trying to reason with them will not go very far.

IMO this sort of critique misses the point - obviously the bosses do not care for the the job security of individual workers. Indeed that bosses put profits before people is an accepted matter of fact, even outside revolutionary circles - particularly amongst the working class - so why focus on this particular example amongst all the others? The bosses serve their own interests, this is abundantly clear to most - even if accepted apathetically.

Obviously the effects of new technology will displace some workers (though also creating new jobs - but the ratio of jobs lost to those created is unknown?) - this is inevitable, as human knowledge and technology develops certain jobs will become obsolete, and not necessarily by the design of the bosses (whose prime concern is the profit margin) - but because the nature of work evolves over time, that is as the technology of class society develops. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the service industry has grown so much over the past few decades? Though that is just speculation on my part. Regardless, the ruling class will not abolish human labour (or anything close to it) - creating a majority population of unemployed workers would run against their class interests, that is their craving for social order.

Yeah, that's why revleft.com hates technological progress so much that people who opposes it are restricted. You are attacking a strawman. We technocrats for example loves automatisation because it diminishes the need for work.

www.technocracynet.eu

Technology does not cause unemployment - capitalism does.

When the service sector is automatised, we will probably see a transition to some form of socialism.

In what way does abolishing the "boss class" have anything to do with technology?

Your primitivism is showing.

Dead on. If I own a company full of working people or a company full of working machines--it's all the same to me. Either way I OWN the company.

The question is not about ownership, but about de-facto control. De-facto, many owners, especially of larger firms, do not control their own property and have left it to the governorship of corporate boards, something which showns that the labour aristocracy maybe is beginning to replace the bourgeoisie.

Boards of directors are almost unanimously (with a token here or there, of course,) CEO's or senior managers of other companies. CEOs of various companies routinely sit on the boards of each other's businesses and especially executive committees (where "financial compensation" to executive officers is doled out.) The ownership of these businesses is located among thousands of shareholders but very large shareholders often have a good deal to say about a company's management.

And Labor, and by that I mean unionized labor is a vastly diminishing entity in corporate America and he world in general. It's a product of the early 20th century and will be gone very soon.

the use of technology for capitalist means.

Via the abolition of the boss class, the working class can dictate the use of technology in a way which is more sympathetic to the people working in the sectors that would be disrupted by the introduction of various new forms of technology.
My primitivism? na mate. I ain't once mentioned technology being abolished in this thread, neither that technology is inherently evil, so no I haven't shown that at all. My advocation to abolish the boss classes, which is the capitalist class, which is capitalism, is what I have stated in this thread.

I understand what you're saying, but what is the point of contention here?

I.E. what are we meant to be discussing?

I think we (well, the revleftists) all agree that bosses in general care little for the job security of individual workers, and so cannot be relied upon to ensure the livelihood of workers displaced by technological development.

Further, we all agree that workers themselves should be in control of the means of production (and thus capable of ensuring the livelihood of all peoples) - and that to do this the working class must, through social revolution - abolish the boss class and with them capitalism (as you suggest) - so what is the controversy? On what point do you see a difference of opinion with other comrades here?