Digital automation: 'post-capitalism' or a new Lucas Plan?
November 9th 2017, 7.15pm. London Action Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate Street London E1. Free/donation
Digital technology-driven automation and restructuring has been ongoing since the 1960s, most notoriously in the destruction of the printers’ unions by Rupert Murdoch in the 1980s. Now, the impending ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ is creating widespread public anxiety about massive job losses caused by robots and software, and threats to workers rights as digital technology restructures the economy. Some on the left have welcomed this trend, arguing that, with Universal Basic Income, automation can produce a post-work, or even ‘post-capitalist’ utopia. Another left tradition, embodied by the Lucas Plan of the 1970s, argues for socially useful work and for putting human skills at the centre of production.
Tahir Latif of PCS union will describe current challenges for workers facing automation in air traffic control.
Jim Benfield, of Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) will talk about the Deliveroo strike and impact of digital technology in the gig economy.
Dave King of Breaking the Frame will critique recent calls for 'full automation' from the left, and show how the Lucas Plan provides a better solution for the future.
Free/donation.
7.15pm, November 9th
Venue: London Action Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate Street London E1
For more information contact [email protected], or visit http://breakingtheframe.org.uk/category/events-listings/.
This event seems quite
This event seems quite interesting, too bad it's on the wrong side of the Atlantic for me. I'd be interested to know what kind of "critique" of full automation using the Lucas Plan would look like. Granted, I don't know that much about the Lucas Plan, but IIRC, wasn't it a proposal by the workers at the Lucas Aerospace plant to produce more "useful" products? Sure, it was also a way for the workers to keep their jobs, which makes sense in the capitalists mode of production, but calls for "full automation" are based on the assumption of moving beyond capitalism and thus only producing useful stuff for people (rather than money for capital). Hence, I'd be interested if this call for a new Lucas Plan is just the typical conservative plea of a return to the good old days of Fordism (and hence keeping the wage-relation intact), if it is about the here and now (i.e. the increasing unemployment automation will likely cause due to the existence of wage-labour and thus necessity of having a job to survive), or if it is looking beyond the capitalist mode of production. I am sure there are even more ways of looking at this combination.
luddites200, will this meeting be recorded by any chance?
This is something which RAG
This is something which RAG has been discussing as an area ripe for basing some picketing/ discussion with affected workers around, mostly because :- "Some on the left have welcomed this trend, arguing that, with Universal Basic Income, automation can produce a post-work, or even ‘post-capitalist’ utopia" quite clearly isnt going to happen given the current lack of class consiousness among the vast majority of the working class and the fact that the state will use Universal Basic Income as a sop with which to suppress any potential diseffection within the working class.A post-work, or even ‘post-capitalist’ utopia" could possibly be achieved but we believe that its going to need a bit of poking of the working class before that becomes a reality.
Given that the US is one of
Given that the US is one of the only countries which isnt currently talking about trialling UBI it seems very unlikely that fully automated luxury gay space communism is going to occur and automation more likely to become a source of intense conflict betwen the working class and employers.