A consensus-shattering account of automation technologies and their
effect on workplaces and the labor market
In this consensus-shattering account of automation technologies, Aaron
Benanav investigates the economic trends that will shape our working
lives far into the future.
Silicon Valley titans, politicians, techno-futurists, and social critics
have united in arguing that we are on the cusp of an era of rapid
technological automation, heralding the end of work as we know it. But
does the muchdiscussed "rise of the robots" really explain the long-term
decline in the demand for labor?
Automation and the Future of Work uncovers the deep weaknesses of
twenty-first-century capitalism and the reasons why the engine of
economic growth keeps stalling. Equally important, Benanav goes on to
salvage from automation discourse its utopian content: the positive
vision of a world without work. What social movements, he asks, are
required to propel us into post-scarcity if technological innovation
alone can't deliver it? In response to calls for a permanent universal
basic income that would maintain a growing army of redundant workers, he
offers a groundbreaking counterproposal.
