• NikkiB@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 days ago

    I would research “tendency of rate of profit to fall.” No, automation is not socialism, though it is more viable with socialism than capitalism in the long term.

      • NikkiB@lemmygrad.ml
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        20 hours ago

        Presumably a massive economic crash. This has obviously never happened, it doesn’t even “fall” consistently over time due to the repeated capture of new markets overseas. Marx is just describing the consequences of “automation” under capitalism, or more generally the outsourcing of human labor to machinery.

  • Redderthanmisty@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 days ago

    Not necessarily.

    Socialism specifically refers to who owns and controls the means of production, such as factories, farms, businesses, or other assets that produce commodities which hold useful value.

    As it stands, the means of production, despite its operation becoming increasingly automated, still largely remains owned by private individuals.

    To achieve socialism, the means of production would need to be seized and both held in common / public ownership and be put to use producing on a basis of the material needs of the population instead of chasing the profit motive.

  • CarlMarks@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    Capitalism cannoy automate everything. The road to such automation creates crisis for capitalism, namely profitability due to, e.g., firing too large a percentage of the workforce and killing demand while operating on even slimmer profit margins. Resolving these crisis has historically been fueled by destruction and rebuilding. War and occupation. Genocide.

    • Che's Motorcycle@lemmygrad.ml
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      3 days ago

      This is the right take. Moreover, the capitalist West lacks the means of production to automate in the first place. So the real question is, what will AES states do as they continue to automate?

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    I don’t see ever happening, but for the sake of question: No, full automation under capitalism most likely would mean everything is owned by one guy or one small clique. Which at one hand is good because it means the bourgeoisie do have just one neck, but on the other means most of other people were socially murdered before that happened.

  • Archangel@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    No. Anyone not wealthy enough to own the means of production, will become servants to those that are…or they’ll be allowed to die of starvation, somewhere just out of sight.

  • King_Simp@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 days ago

    I think a good comparison to make here would be the industrialization under the French Ancien regime and the late Qing dynasty. Or more specifically the lack there of. With mass automation, the capitalist system would fail and collapse for numerous reasons. Ergo, in order to preserve itself, the system would delay the transfer to automation the best it could and also put in quotas and such to prevent automation from becoming the dominant economic factor.

    This actually is parallelled in the doctor who episode KABLAM, where an entire moon is dedicated to what is basically and amazon warehouse. A quota of 10% of workers had to be real people, despite the fact that automation was much better. However, the workers were paid pittances and treated horribly, because why wouldn’t they be? (What’s the funniest thing is that the writers think this is…good? Like, the whole system is effed up and the writers are all like “oh wow isn’t this so cool guys.” It’s hilarious.)

  • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    Nope they will just continue killing us all faster and faster as more of us become “useless.” “Voluntary” assisted dying for the white people who are depressed because they are poor or disabled because they hurt themselves doing one of the unautomated jobs. Pogroms and prisons for the non white western populations. Climate change and War for the global south.

    If they have their way eventually all of humanity will be descendants of musk, bezos, gates, zuckerberg and a few other white billionaires and even then they will still try to fight and enslave each other.

  • m532@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    I think nothing would substantially change from right now. The world is already able to provide for everyone. The capitalists will just make up billions of extra bullshit jobs.

    • borschtisgarbo@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 days ago

      No, they would not. That is something a more socially oriented government would do, capitalists have no interest in employing everyone and anyone. It goes against their interests

  • LeGrognardOfLove@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    Here’s a version without an ideological filter : An actuary will calculate what is the best for the stock market for a corporation: invest into automation or offshore production to a country where production is cheaper. It’s mostly always cheaper to offshore than invest in automation.

    At some point, no offshoring option exist and some actuary will actually tell their masters to invest in automation. Some will do, but research is not always successful and takes a long time.

    Neo-liberal gov. will seek stability and so they will either invest into their friends corporation, to stabilize them and enrich themselves. This will mean wage stagnation and being outcompeted by countries that successfully automated.

    At this point, the empire will grow hungry for stability and stock market growth, and will either try to make another country it’s cheap offshore location, by several economic, diplomatic or even millitary strategy or start to make it’s actually population serf again.

    If the second happens, chances of revolution starts to go up. We may see a modern French-style revolution in the empire, or something like that, start to be more likely.

    But more realistically, we won’t get to see this, as the climate is already starting to disrupt human activity. The western empire is already imploding and unable to respond to the new reality so mostly, no one serious is able to predict the next few years.

  • Comprehensive49@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    Ay, I made a post asking this question before! https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6729708

    TLDR: if the rich succeed in building AI systems that cater fully to their needs through the whole supply chain (i.e. AI can mine and process resources into what they want with no humans needed), then the rich will have no reason to keep anyone else around and can just massacre all the poors.

    Recently, the r/singularity subreddit has had several posts which show some class-consciousness, despite they mostly-techbro atmosphere.

    The post I’ve linked and reproduced below states a concern I also have with AI:

    If we assume that we reach AGI, maybe even super intelligence, then we can expect a lot of human jobs will suddenly become obsolete.

    First it could be white collar and tech jobs. Then when robotics catches up, manual labor will soon follow. Pretty soon every conceivable position a human once had can now be taken over by a machine.

    Humans are officially obsolete.

    What’s really chilling is that, while humans in general will no longer be a necessity to run a government or society, the very few billionaires at the top that helped bring this AI to existence will be the ones who control it - and no longer need anyone else. No military personnel, teachers, doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats, engineers, no one.

    Why should countries exist filled with people when people are no longer needed to farm crops, serve in the military, build infrastructure, or anything else?

    I would like to believe that if all of humanities needs can now always be fulfilled (but controlled by a very, very few), those few would see the benefit in making sure everyone lives a happy and fulfilling life.

    The truth is though, the few at the top will likely leave everyone else to fend for themselves the second their walled garden is in place.

    As the years pass, eventually AI becomes fully self-sustaining - from sourcing its own raw materials, to maintaining and improving its own systems - even the AI does not need a single human anymore (not that many are left at that point).

    Granted, it could take a long while for this scenario to occur (if ever), but the way things are shaking out, it’s looking more and more unlikely that we’ll never get to a utopia where no one works unless they want to and everyone’s needs are met. It’s just not possible if the people in charge are greedy, backstabbing, corporate sociopaths that only play nice because they have to at the moment.

    I find their argument quite valid, only lacking in the explicit mention of ‘capitalism’.

    Once the rich have full-supply-chain-AI, we wouldn’t be able to revolt even if we wanted to. The robotic police force controlled by the rich can just massacre all the poors.

    This puts a hard time limit on when revolution needs to occur. After that I guess we need China’s J-36s to save the American proletariat.

  • darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    Barbarism.

    I fear that RFK is not just a crank put in to create chaos but as an intentional ploy to cull the proles, to make us sicker, to live shorter lives, to be more desperate for healthcare that must be paid out of pocket, to go into medical debt more readily because the only covered healthcare is quackery and the air and water and soil are poisoned.