
“What would human beings do in an automated future?” One where robots do our manual labor? One where AI and advanced algorithms do most of our thinking and processing for us? This is the question with which author Aaron Benanav opens Automation and the Future of Work. It’s worth thinking about, whether it’s really coming or whether it’s more like a dog chasing its tail. Would we be freer and have the ability to enjoy our lives without work? Or would we all be unemployed, hungry and miserable?
Automation theorists of all stripes argue a future with no work, or at least far less work, is on its way. Many of them believe that one day, we will have to radically restructure our economy. This is because getting a job will no longer be a reasonable expectation for many people. That includes people of able bodies, clear minds and average ambitions. These automation theorists propose that a universal basic income (UBI) might be needed.
Researcher Aaron Benanav does not believe this future is inevitable. In fact, they believe they can prove that the forces of automation are not destroying jobs on a wide scale. At the very least, they’re not doing it yet. He bases this the premise that successful automation would increase “labor productivity growth“. Investment in automated tech should let us produce more goods and services for the money. Thing is, Benanav argues that rates of “labor productivity growth” are going down, not up. More than that, advanced countries are facing what’s called “industrial overcapacity“. They have too much in the way of factories and machines and too little to build with them profitably. It’s an amazing thing to suggest that, given all the junk we have filling our homes (and landfills, and oceans). But Benanav seems to have done his research. While I’m no economist, the statistics and graphs he provides are convincing.
What’s really causing deindustrialization if not more automation? Benanav says it’s due to declining rates of profit. In the 20th century, industrialization expanded so much that we started overproducing products. This is the classic capitalist crisis – we produce too much of something. Then people won’t buy it all, sales and prices go down, profits fall. Businesses close or stop investing in new production. The manufacturing sector still grows worldwide. But the rate at which it grows has slowed to a crawl compared to its heyday.
Meanwhile, firms aren’t hiring workers at greater rates. Instead, they are making those same employees work harder and faster. They’ve also been cutting wages, as well as engaging in outsourcing. Businesses focus on quick schemes, mergers, speculative bubbles and financial instruments. This is an easier way to get rich than building more factories and churning out more products. Set this against the slowing pace of industrial growth. The increased output squeezed from workers makes it look like productivity growth is up. Really, though, it isn’t.
Too many workers are also underemployed now, Benanav notes. They don’t make enough from their employment to make ends meet. In developing nations, many people are stuck in an informal economy rather than being formally employed at all. That means street sellers, rickshaw drivers, under the table work, and so on. Meanwhile, in the richest nations, service jobs like cashiers, cooks, and customer service workers are taking over. They’re far more common than manufacturing work. Even those in formerly well-paying blue collar and white collar jobs are feeling the squeeze. They’re increasing their debt loads and their standards of living are decreasing. All this is happening now, already, without large scale automation pushing them out of the workplace. But there are holes we could poke in this argument. Again, Benanav’s argument rests on the idea that automation increases productivity. That may not be as firm an assumption as he thinks. Some companies will automate a task with a program or robot that doesn’t increase output. If I’m a burger flipper and the robot that replaces me only can flip 20% of the burgers I can in an hour, that sounds bad. But if that robot costs only 5% of what I cost to operate, that may be a deal the company will take. A lot of companies might take that deal. If this calculus works on a larger scale, it could call a lot of Benanav’s thesis into question.
The same skeptical outlook shows up here for instituting a universal basic income. If we’re going to give everyone money just for existing, it would have to be enough for everyone to get a dignified quality of life and to meet all their basic needs. A high enough UBI gives the workers that remain power to refuse work they don’t want to do, or conditions that are unfavorable to them. If we do it wrong, however, it will simply be a way of eliminating all real welfare protections. It will provide a bare subsistence level to a cash-strapped population, and in the end these people will be no freer for it. They’ll still be dependent on those who own most of the capital and the automated technologies that generate wealth. And all of this assumes, again, that this automated future can be attained.
In the post-scarcity world, we all work less or not at all, but have all that we need or desire. We have plenty of free time, and the environment has been restored to a healthy state as well. Automation proponents believe this is due to an automated, post-scarcity future. But Benanav believes we can achieve that future even if full automation doesn’t happen. What does Benanav want us to focus on instead? Creating a world of plenty and human dignity, he says, is still possible. We can achieve it whether we automate everything or not.
How then do we build a better society beyond capitalism and wage-labor? Benanav suggests we should think about the world we want in terms of the rights and freedoms we could be guaranteed. Then, we work backward to think of the technical, organizational and political changes needed to get there. Do we want universal healthcare, education, housing and similar guarantees? Do we really want folks to haul garbage and flip burgers all day so that others can pursue their passions? Perhaps there are cooperative systems we could create where we assign these tasks fairly, the author argues. Perhaps no one has to make them their daily vocation if we all do them a little, along with having free time to do what we will. There are some occupations that would require more dedication. Most people aren’t going to sign up to be part-time surgeons, after all. Still, we can distribute these talents more equitably than we do now. The key is that people should feel free to choose most of the work they do. They should feel trusted to do it, and they should feel that what they do is useful to themselves and others. To me, these are all pretty standard to communist descriptions of the future. Benanav’s not exactly wrong with any of these goals. But he’s also not providing anything very detailed or new to work with. This does little to provide us a path to that future.
Automation and the Future of Work is a short and thin volume, but it’s incredibly dense. The core of it is very involved economic analysis, chock-full of data and charts. It’s intimidating and honestly struck me as quite a chore to read. Additionally, the idea of automation’s future seems almost to be a framing device at times. The macroeconomic argument seems to be the focus. The book is really about declining profits, manufacturing overcapacity, declining investment and underemployment. It underlines a core Marxist argument about capitalist crises. Then it supports it with economic data. Is this a worthwhile book for people interested in such things? Probably, but it’s not exactly enjoyable. This is the book you let some other author read and digest for you. Hopefully, they can incorporate it into their more accessible take on the issue.
Automation and the Future of Work
What if the robots and computer programs aren't really coming for our jobs? Can we still have that sweet, post-scarcity, Star Trek future?
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