Automation: The Final Frontier
Adlai Erwin
Introduction:
Across the globe, political sentiments are increasingly echoing the working class’ disapproval of the current relations of production. In the 2016 United States election cycle, the redistribution of wealth was a major point of cleavage in the electorate. In Karl Marx’s view, the societal superstructure is reflective of what is occurring at its economic base. If this is the case, it is clear something needs to change based on popular political sentiments. The answer is automation. Automation as a revolution in the means of production has the clear potential to be the remedy to the woes of the tired, exploited, and seemingly expendable working class. This type of technological advancement will be the impetus for a new, automated mode of production that will logically follow capitalism. This paper will seek to conceptually define historical materialism and automation for the purpose of this research, analyze the inevitability of automation as a mode of production from the perspective of historical materialism, briefly articulate and analyze two scholarly views on automation’s impact, and lastly evaluate what an automated mode of production would look like.
Conceptual Definitions for Historical Materialism and Automation:
Perhaps Marx’s greatest insight, the theory of historical materialism emphasizes economics as the underlying causal mechanism driving history. Historical materialism explains that history evolves through humans interacting with nature and thereby using technology to transform raw materials into means of supporting human life. As a result of this process, modes of production arise that are characterized by revolutions in the forces and relations of production, which are the base of society. An inherent dialectic exists between those who own the means of production and those who do not, the invariable class struggle. Reflecting the economic base is society’s superstructure, or the institutional sociocultural mechanisms, such as politics, the legal system, and culture. More observably, much of the superstructure comes about through the class struggle itself. This notion is exemplified in the modern age by political campaigns in the 2016 United States election like Bernie Sanders, who championed the interests of the working class and was in stark opposition to the “mega-rich”.
While technological innovation has occurred throughout all of history, automation is a true paradigm shift. But what is automation? A popularly held misconception is that automation only extends to manufacturing robotics, this is mostly due to schematic conceptualization from pop-culture. However, automation is much more diverse in its applicability in the workforce. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, automation is defined as, “automatically controlled operation of an apparatus, process, or system by mechanical or electronic devices that take the place of human labor.” Using this definition will allow us to more holistically analyze automation to evaluate how it relates to Marxism broadly, and how it will eventually usher in communism as the final mode of production in history.
Historical Materialism and Automation:
In historical materialism, new modes of production come about through the technological progress achieved in the prior mode and their concomitant shift in the relations of production. Since the 19th century, the current mode of production, industrial capitalism, has transformed the way we live through its unprecedented productive output. In a 2010 study comparatively analyzing what economic systems created 87 “revolutionary innovations” since 1917, 85 of the 87 came from capitalist economies (Innovation and Dynamism, 635). Across the globe, people’s living standards and overall life expectancies have risen sharply through the seemingly endless access to goods and services that industrial capitalism has provided them with.
Concurrently, since the inception of widespread industrial capitalism the world has experienced unparalleled growth in scientific knowledge. This can largely be attributed to capitalism’s competitive nature and the constant yearning by capitalists to fund research to find methods to make the accrual of capital more efficient. Many profit driven companies in a variety of sectors employ scientists and engineers to fund the expansion of profitable knowledge. According to 2016 statistics from the National Science Foundation 70.1% of all employed scientists and engineers worked in the business industry, with 52.4% of them being employed by for-profit businesses (Science and Engineering Indicators 2016, Table 3–6). Without an intellectual reservoir to assist the capitalist in innovation, they face the possibility of being overrun by their competitors and rendered inept. This notion is explanatory in why well over half of all employed scientists and engineers work in the business sector. Scientists’ and engineers’ expertise has the potential to be highly beneficial in revolutionizing a capitalists’ means to produce, and inevitably gain more profit.
Through the lens of historical materialism, automation ushering in a new mode of production is inevitable. This shift in automation is already becoming apparent, and is projected to take place rapidly, it is estimated that by 2025 automation will take up 25% of the global workforce in manufacturing alone. When compared over the past two decades, investment in automation and software has doubled the output of U.S. workers (Don’t Blame China for Taking U.S. Jobs). Automation’s productive output are unparalleled and indicative of the inevitable transformation to automated forces of production.
Changing to automated forces of production is highly beneficial to a capitalist based on the two fundamental laws of capitalism posited by Marx; the theories of infinite accumulation and surplus value. Capitalists seek to maximize profit, and the easiest way to do so is through minimizing expenditures. One of the most obvious ways to do this is by cutting employees’ wages to skim off more surplus value. With automation, capitalists have the chance to bypass wages altogether by making larger, singular investments in automated technologies that are beneficial in the long-term as opposed to making prolonged incremental payments to their workers. Capitalists can accumulate even more total wealth by having less overhead to factor in, making their profit margins much wider. Automation, as an innovation in productivity and cost-effectiveness, provides a capitalist with increased potential for profit. As Marx states in Capital: Volume One, “Like every other instrument for increasing the productivity of labor, machinery is intended to cheapen commodities and, by shortening the part of the working day in which the worker works for himself, to lengthen the other part, the part he gives to the capitalist for nothing. The machine is a means for producing surplus-value.” (Capital A Critique of Political Economy: Volume One, Penguin Edition 492). Surplus value would be skimmed off the automated machines in their entirety, these technologies would quite literally pay for themselves over time, and could do so quickly due to their profit maximizing potential. The capitalists’ use of automation, rather than human labor is an invaluable asset, making these investitures vastly beneficial in the pursuit of profit.
Analysis of Divergent Scholarly Perspectives on Automation:
Scholarly discourse on machinery and its potential impacts on society, particularly the economy, has been written about for hundreds of years. Recent economic literature on this subject has increasingly turned towards analyzing the role of automation and its impact on the workforce. In the 21st century, it is not unrealistic to assume automation will paradigmatically change the world economy. In fact, it is only a matter of time before this occurs. However, numerous scholars disagree as to how it will impact the world. Typically, most scholars argue it will either lead to a reformed economic system, a new mode of production in Marxian terms, or it will make the issues endemic to capitalism even worse. Either way, both sides of the spectrum realize a profound impact on employment will occur, and something will have to be done to societally adapt to said changes.
While literature on this issue is expansive, this research will focus on Paul Krugman and David Harvey’s perspectives. Krugman is a Nobel prize winning economist and renowned economics professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His economic philosophy falls into the Keynesian school of thought. David Harvey is a distinguished, multi-award winning professor of anthropology and geography also at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Contrary to Krugman, Harvey is best known for his adherence to Marxist economic theory.
In the eyes of Krugman, the rise of automation will largely drive people out of the workforce, no matter their level of expertise. In his article, Robots and Robber Barons, he articulates that even high-paying jobs requiring post-secondary education are at risk of being taken over by automation (Robots and Robber Barons). Automated means of producing can more accurately, efficiently, and cheaply do the tasks done by humans; and best of all, they can be functioning 24/7. As we can see, the ignorant bliss of many “educated” people’s belief that their jobs are exempt from automation is simply not realistic. For example, the legal field is increasingly pointing towards an automated future. Two legal professors teamed with a data scientist and consultant have created a computer program that uses artificial intelligence to predict U.S. Supreme Court Verdicts before they are ruled; so far it has had a 70% success rate (The Uncertain Future: Turbulence and Change in the Legal Field). Based on Krugman’s insight, and relevant outliers, it is highly evident the automation shift will affect the job market in all sectors, no matter how much training or skill is required.
Krugman also asserts that it is likely the typical capitalist trend of monopolization will coincide with the rise of automation. Smart machines capable of doing human work will drive the GDP up exponentially. Society will be getting richer, however, all of the new wealth will only be accrued by those who own the automated forces of production (Is Growth Over?). Wealth inequality today is already abhorrently evident, and will only be exacerbated by monopolization of mechanized means to produce.
Krugman believes the only way for automation to not fully disrupt society is to adopt a welfare state principles. That is, a universal minimum income, free healthcare, and other social welfare programs that give the displaced worker a safety net, paid for by increased taxes on profits and investment income (Sympathy for the Ludittes). This would allow people to not be trampled by the monopolistic inequalities that would occur through the concentration of the new means of production. Contemporaneously, it would save the capitalist class since people would retain purchasing power. Without these changes, societal stability could be doomed with the rise of automation in Krugman’s estimation.
David Harvey’s view on automation takes a much more classical Marxian standpoint. As Marx identified, Harvey too posits that excessive innovation (technologically and organizationally) has the potential to create crises as a result of displacing the laborer too rapidly (The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis this Time). This follows from the notion that without the worker’s purchasing power, the investment in new technologies will have no relative economic gains since there will be little to no demand. If people were to be displaced from the labor force rapidly, and thereby lose their income, the few who do actually have savings can be expected to use said savings in one of two ways. First, to try and invest in some type of capital to acquire wealth for themselves to produce income. This invariably would put them in the same contradictive state as the capitalist, since there would be few with purchasing power. The second, and more realistic view based on sociobiology, is they would be more focused on using saved income to meet immediate needs for sustenance, such as: buying food, making home payments, and buying useful clothing.
In his work, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, Harvey articulates in Chapter 8 that towards capitalism’s end if all the means of production were automated then value would cease to exist. Harvey stresses that automation is contradictory in nature due to this flaw: if social-labor is the highest source of value and profit, then replacing humans with automation makes no sense (Harvey, 104). Marx’s labor theory of value posited that the value of a commodity revolves around how much socially necessary labor goes into the production of said commodity (An Introduction to Marxian Economics 1: The Labour Theory of Value). Through the lens of Marx’s labor theory of value, automation would destroy the basis of value, the human laborer’s social value. Full-scale automation by its very nature is dialectical in this regard, destroying the value of the product it is being used to create.
What is Harvey’s solution to making sure automation does not spiral the world into apocalypse? In “Marxish” terms, as the great Dr. John Langton would say, he advocates for a type of secular revolutionary humanism. (Harvey, 287). In essence, this is humanism that can unite the religious and non-religious against the alienation of capital to push for a utopian society. He argues the current state of politics and the contradictions of “oligarchic class privilege” that are evident in the milieus of democratic societies set the stage for the “end of capital” (Harvey, 293). The masses must become cognizant of the consequences of the contradictions posed by capitalism, and inextricably automation, and take some sort of action (Harvey, 293). In contrast to Marx, Harvey does not advocate for violent revolution. Rather, he provides 17 practical solutions to fixing capitalism through public policy (Harvey, 294–296).
My Take: Automation as a New Mode of Production
In Marx’s analysis of capitalism and its inevitable fall, he consistently highlighted that before communism would occur it would be preceded by socialism. In his view, socialism would be a societal precursor to full-scale communism, serving as a temporary transitional mode of production. Socialism as an interim mode of production would serve a philosophical and practical purpose. Philosophically, socialism would lead to the liberation of man from capitalism’s alienating modalities; a process of humanistic reversion (Marx’s Concept of Socialism). The elimination of the capitalistic idolatry of commodity consumption, and the need to produce to meet this need will allow man to transcend capitalism’s indenturing nature. One would produce in a non-competitive manner for the collective good. In a practical sense, socialism will be a transformative period in regard to the reallocation of the means of production to be oriented towards communal ownership rather than private monopolization. Also, it would allow the reorganization of social relations to more adequately support a communist society. Without interim socialism, a rapid transition from capitalism to communism has the potential to undermine the efficaciousness of a long-term communist mode of production.
While automation has the propensity to be highly profitable for the capitalist, it will naturally upset the existing relations of production. This antagonism, coupled with the revolutionized forces of production, will create a new mode of production, what I call automated socialism. The automated socialist mode of production will particularly embody the emancipation of the worker, and the abolition of class struggle and private property.
Capitalism as a mode of production has largely been an alienating and stultifying experience, with many workers simply being subjugated to external appendages of the machine. Automation allows humans the unique opportunity to be emancipated from the damnation of capitalism’s uniquely estranging tendencies. By using self-sufficient automation in the workforce, especially in regards to manufacturing, service, and logistics, people will no longer be subjected to medial labor for the capitalists’ ends. All of these sectors of the economy involve a division of labor that often takes little to no creative capacity, nor utilization of unique intellectual predispositions. In the automated socialist mode of production, the unbound worker will have more time to become a “renaissance man” and exercise their potential as free, creative, conscious humans. Marx considered that rather than operating the machinery, humans would be focused on the design process, allowing them to exercise their creative capacities (Marx On Automated Industry). Design would require more education and intellectual diversity, employing people’s distinctive cognitive abilities to better society in a non-alienating fashion.
Since society’s superstructure is determined by the economic base, the shift to automation will clearly be represented politically, socially, and culturally. From a political perspective, the transition from capitalism to socialism will take place through the “rule of the working class” from a democratic perspective. The working class will hold office and represent the interests of the majority class and exert policy that will aid in the fortified creation of the socialist society (The Socialist Mode of Production). The changes in the relations of production will change the political status quo in democratic society, a sort of socialist populism would occur from the lack of employment. In the spirit of creating a socialist economic base, the democratic rule of the working class will allow them to protect the shift in the relations of production from privately owned and monopolized to communally owned that occurred dialectically. Protecting the communalized relations of production politically will allow a cultural shift, changing the norms of private ownership of property.
The mode of production with automation as its basis will unavoidably change the relations of production, leading to the end of class struggle. Class distinctions based on wealth will be destroyed since automation will dialectically change the potential for exploitative class relations.
Initially, the capitalists’ replacement of human-labor with automation will result in widespread unemployment. Software entrepreneur Martin Ford estimates that by the end of the century automation will result in 75% unemployment (Robot Economy Could Cause Up To 75% Unemployment). As a result, a dialectic occurs undermining the capitalists’ interests of ascertaining profit. Since the majority of people will have no means of income, and thus will be unable to purchase capitalists’ products, it will inescapably run them out of business. Shifting the relations of production to favor the working-class rather than the capitalist. With this paradigm swing in the relations of production, and class relations broadly, the capitalist and the working class will be on the same social level, and concomitantly have the same interests since the capitalist class no longer has an upper-hand.
This newfound social egalitarianism inexorably destroys class struggle since there now lacks economic antagonisms between the working class and their former capitalist overlords. According to Marxism, a society without class antagonisms will concurrently see the abolition of private property. This eradication is due to the absence of private ownership of the forces of production. In chapter 32 of Capital, Volume One, Marx defines private property as “the antithesis to social, collective property, exists only where the means of labor and the external conditions of labor belong to private individuals” (Capital, Chapter Thirty-Two: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation). In automated socialism, the automated means of production will be communally owned, thus not allowing private property in the Marxian sense to proliferate.
Conclusion:
Automation will be a revolutionary force of production, but not in the sense capitalists ignorantly believe it will. Our epoch’s technological maturity provides us the unique opportunity to liberate ourselves from the menial work we are forced to partake in due to the current relations of production. Automation’s inherent potential for deliverance in this regard is not to be trivialized. As its been shown, a rise of widespread automation is accurate from a teleological historical standpoint. It is only a matter of time. Automation’s productive capacities are intrinsically dialectic, and will certainly create a new mode of production. The new mode of production that will accompany automation, automated socialism, will set the stage for full-scale communism in the Marxian sense, insofar as to what can be ascertained. A specter is haunting capitalism, the specter of automation!
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