Part two of my article on automation analyzes the dynamics of the global labor market. I examine UBI as a proposed solution to worldwide labor insecurity and then consider alternative approaches to achieving a post-scarcity future. newleftreview.org/issues/II120/a…
A survey of worldwide vistas of insecure work shows that the main danger in the present moment is not imminently arriving mass unemployment but continuously rising under-employment. This reality has already been accepted by states and the wealthy elites they represent.
Meanwhile, in sluggish economies periodically wracked by austerity, it has been easier to blame the resulting social deterioration on vulnerable sections of the workforce—immigrants, women, racial and religious minorities—than to unite around a new emancipatory social project.
Turning the tide towards a more humane future will therefore depend on masses of working people refusing to accept a persistent decline in the demand for their labour and the rising inequality it entails. Struggles around these trends are already unfolding across the globe.
If these struggles fail to organize around a new emancipatory project, maybe the best we will get is a higher social wage in the form of UBI. However, we should not be fighting for this goal but rather to expand the realm of freedom, for everyone, on a post-scarcity planet.
PDFs of this article and all my other articles can be found on the secret part of my website. aaronbenanav.com/papers
