I find this idea of post-capitalism fascinating. We can already see early stages of this taking place, especially with the explosion of the Internet. Automation is practically inevitable, we just have to overcome the social/political obstacles that will result from not having to work for a living. Anyone else eager to see such change happening? It's small steps, but at least its there.
Postcapitalism is possible because of three major changes information technology has brought about in the past 25 years. First, it has reduced the need for work, blurred the edges between work and free time and loosened the relationship between work and wages. The coming wave of automation, currently stalled because our social infrastructure cannot bear the consequences, will hugely diminish the amount of work needed – not just to subsist but to provide a decent life for all.
It will definitely be interesting when all the mcjobs (which, correct me if I'm wrong, have been the main area of job growth since 2008) start to be automized. On one hand, it might give people incentive to get more technical educations, since people will still have to take care of the machines. But there will definitely be some growing pains in the next 10-20 years.
Then again, if one machine does the work which used to be done by twenty people, one guy maintaining it is probably not going to make that much of a difference. The way I see it, the solution will be: - dystopian police state full of poor and broken people and a few rich overlords,
or
- basic income for a significant portion of the population, with additional rights of ressource consumption earned through work
or
- a significant reduction of the population. I do have a clear favorite. The other two are the reason I tend to get nervous when I learn about things like the militarization of police, total surveillance or all the recent sabre rattling.
We have a hard enough time as it is to get people to appreciate the purposes that our current social welfare programs have. Something like basic universal income would be a very hard sell.basic income for a significant portion of the population, with additional rights of ressource consumption earned through work
I don't know much about economics, if anything at all, but if I had to guess I'd say it's gonna suck being stuck in the muck during this transition. The way I imagine it, the people on top are probably going to try to make a lot of weird and unfair policies to try to keep things the way they are, slowing down the process of change and hurting a lot of people along the way. I think the biggest thing we'll have to overcome is a lot more people are going to be staring down the barrel of the unemployment gun and feel like there's nowhere to go. Without good, strong safety nets put in place early, this could lead to a lot of unhappy people.
Yes, indeed yes. Been seeing the signs of capitalism run amok in this country (America) for a while now, how it's gotten so power heavy, out of control, and I'm seeing more and more signs that the population is starting to rebel. Very curious to see what this leads to. This is the awesome thing about spending 40-70 years on this planet: in your own lifetime, you get to see patterns, cycles, history repeating itself.