Automation, Full Unemployment and a Future We Deserve
Zero greenhouse gas emissions, universal healthcare, free higher education and a jobs guarantee. A federal jobs guarantee to be precise, with the government providing employment to every American who needs it, either in the public sector or by subsidizing it in the private. It is a rather interesting notion, considering the fact that top global executives are spending billions of dollars to transform their businesses into gaunt, digitized, highly automated operations. Indeed, automation in their echelons is spoken about as if it were a natural phenomenon over which they have no control, resembling an earthquake or a flood, with the impact their lust for higher profits on the working class not even a mere afterthought.
The Green New Deal pushed by a group of progressive Democrats has been lauded an ambitious, even radical proposal of society reimagined. But if reimagining society is what they are after, perhaps playing along to the tune of the know-it-all boss men and dropping their historical adherence to job creation would be a better idea. Scrap it altogether, replacing the classic social democratic demand for full employment with a future-orientated appeal for full unemployment.
Allow me to clarify.
We tend to forget that the capitalist golden age our statesmen are trying so hard to recover was…
