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@vidar @TruthSandwich @jhavok @futurebird

I'm not sold on automation being the important part here. During my lifetime, the main driver of capitalist "productive" improvements (productive being in scare quotes because it increases shareholder value but not meaningful production) has been reorganisation, not automation.

I've worked for some very big companies and the rise of office software hasn't led to the decrease in head office staff or management, just the rise in what Graeber called bullshit jobs. Airbnb, Uber, WeWork and the other tech unicorns haven't created leisure, just precarity.

Meanwhile, my clothes are made by child slaves in whatever country won the race to the bottom, and my food is picked by undocumented people whom farmers employ because they can threaten them with migration authorities if they unionise.

Maybe it's because I'm under 40, but I think Marx's belief that capitalism would drive automation is one of the things that's aged worst about his beliefs.