Automation and the Future of Work

The purpose of this book is to explore the possibilities of a post scarcity society and whether work should really be the center of meaning in our world. According to the author we must start to move past capitalism towards a way of organizing society that doesn't put your only value as work in exchange for monetary value.

We see comparisons to the Belle Epoque, but with the added hardship that most people can't just stay on their farms and provide for themselves. There is no way for any of us to ride this out, we must engage in the economy as we try to force it to change.

The entire final chapter is about the post-scarcity society model that the author thinks could work. They're not as sold on basic income as I am, but they agree we need something like that to make a post-scarcity, post-capitalist society work.

Overall, decent read but not a stand out book for me.

Purchase Automation and the a Future of Work on Amazon

- [[universal basic income|basic income]] IX
- [[They Live - John Carpenter]] X
- [[Stare Trek The Next Generation]] XII
- [[Inventing the Future - Nick Srnicek Alex Williams]] XII

**Purpose**

- to explore the possibilities of a post-scarcity society XIII
- to talk about work no longer being the center of our world
- we always ask what someone does for work when we meet them, maybe we should ask something else?

### 1 - The Automation Discourse

- [[universal income]] 2
- [[The Second Machine Age Work Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies - Erik Brynjolfsson Andrew McAfee]] 2
- [[Rise of the Robots - Martin Ford]] 3

- there is no economic policy that says all workers must benefit from advancements in technology. Pg 3
- yet much of the advancement has some funding from public sources. Even if it's just tax breaks to build. Why doesn't the public get the benefits from their investments in tax dollars? Why must it go to big business

- [[The War on Normal People 130920201110]] Pg 4
- [[Raising the Floor - Andy Stern]] Pg 4
- [[Four Futures Life After Capitalism 100920201945]] Pg 4

- automation theorists argue that capitalism is a temporary state and society must move to organize around something besides wages for work and monetary exchange. Pg 7
- labour/worker share of [[income]] has dropped since 1980 Pg 9, 10
- more is going to owners in the form of profits
- [[Income gap]]

### 2 Labour's Global DeIndustrialization

- ![[deindustrialization]] Pg 16

- [[GDP]] Pg 19

- part of [[deindustrialization]] can be attributed to the overcapacity of manufacturing. So there was too much production and thus some of the cause is simply migration to the norm of what consumption is.
- firms had to raise the capacity of individual workers so they could cut labour costs or go under. Pg 26
- so in the quest for all the money, they screwed themselves but laid people off to save the higher up jobs
- [[sun belts]] Pg 27
- [[rust belt]] Pg 27

### 3 In the Shadow of Stagnation

- [[Verdoorns Law]] Pg 34
- there is no more profitable place for a company to invest its surplus cash than in itself via [[stock buybacks]] and [[dividends]] Pg 36, 37
- they don't invest in more infrastructure or capital assets that may benefit everyone around the company, they just focus on [[shareholder]] returns

- [[Belle Epoque]] Pg 39
- the author says the world of today looks much like this era in [[France]] but today less people can just provide for their own needs and must work for wages instead of staying on their farms and doing what they want.

- money directs technological development because most research is only done down paths that appear to yield financial rewards for the companies funding the research. Pg 40
- [[capitalist|capitalism]]
- [[Moores Law]] Pg 40
- [[the singularity]] Pg 40
- when machines will give birth to true [[Ai]]

- some, maybe most, of the automation hype comes from its economic appeal to employers not from its technical feasibility. Pg 44
- and if they can make workers feel precarious they can get them to work longer hours for less pay and still be happy to have a job becaues [[capitalist|capitalism]]
- ![[capitalism wants you to believe you picked your life]]

### 4 - A Low Demand for Labor

- [[The Second Machine Age Work Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies - Erik Brynjolfsson Andrew McAfee]] Pg 45
- [[Andrew Yang]] Pg 46

- it may not be a future without work, but a future of few jobs anyone actually wants to do. Pg 46
- from highly paid coder to coffee shop employee because you've been automated

- [[Capital - Karl Marx]] Pg 47, 48

- higher education became required for jobs that never needed it before. Pg 49
- see [[Sources/Books/The Case Against Education|The Case Against Education]]
- higher education was pursued as a way to stave off the wage depression from a stagnated economy. So if you got more you could earn more
- slowing growth means workers face more precarity in employment as companies move to contract workers who have less protections. Thus while productivity may increase wages don't keep up because workers are afraid if they ask for much more they'll be out of a job. Pg 53
- this puts more money in the pockets of the C-Suite who can then lobby for more laws to benefit them with the extra money they have
- self-employed workers are able to create demand for their services by offering to work for less. Thus they have hours of work, but have sacrificed their income. Pg 60, 61
- [[Rise of the Robots - Martin Ford]] Pg 62

### 5 Silver Bullets

- [[economic insecurity]] makes the appeal of economic nationalism popular. So the profit of big [[capitalist|capitalism]] points the masses towards nationalism as they see their opportunity go away. Pg 65
- think [[Brexit]]

- [[neoliberalism]] Pg 67
- [[secular stagnation]] Pg 69

- big business doesn't want government level social investment because it reduces their ownership of the society in which they live. Better public transit means [[Uber]] can't make money because why would you user their expensive service instead of a relatively cheap and easy to use public service. Pg 70
- this is why [[Elon Musk]] has worked to get his "boring company" running but has done nothing at all with it but divert funds from [[public transit]]

- [[universal basic income|ubi]] Pg 72
- [[Milton Friedman]] Pg 73
- [[Inventing the Future - Nick Srnicek Alex Williams]] Pg 76
- [[social media]] Pg 77

- don't workers first need to be empowered to push for a big enough [[universal basic income|ubi]] to be able to challenge bad working conditions? Pg 78
- with financial precarity the norm, they can't wait out owners with money in their pockets as they try to negotiate for better wages and less profit to owners

### 6 - Necessity and Freetom

- [[post-scarcity]] whole chapter
- maybe we don't need [[universal basic income|ubi]] but should abolish private property and money as a measurement of value. Pg 84, 85
- if we all spent time doing the stuff needed, making food and housing, elder/child care and could have anything else we wanted then we may only work 3 - 5 hours a week. Pg 86
- note caring for children is then work unlike now where it's not considered to bring any economic value
- [[Drive - Daniel H Pink]] Pg 89
- citation 27
- the choice of work is made with a gun to your head of pervasive material insecurity and [[poverty]] Pg 91
- when was the last time you made a choice that $ or lack of it didn't come into the equation?
- this chapter introduced ideas for the design of a [[post-scarcity]] society