Interesting article by Dmytri Kleiner
"it’s not the unskilled, menial jobs Capitalism automates, but usually the
skilled ones."
CAPITAL DOESN’T AUTOMATE, IT ENTANGLES.
During Nick Dyer-Witheford’s presentation at #PlatPol11 the issue of Capital
replacing Labour in production entered the conversation and persisted
throughout the informal discussions. Would Capitalism automate itself out of
existence? Probably not. As Nick noted, it’s not the unskilled, menial jobs
Capitalism automates, but usually the skilled ones. Rather than a future
characterized by gleaming fully automated robot factories producing untold
wealth while humans enjoy a life of leisure and pursuit of higher
consciousness, a more realistic vision of capitalist automation is the panicked
teenager frantically responding to various beeps and buzzers and flashing
lights in the kitchen of a fast-food restaurant.
Up until the 50s only short-order cooks made simple, fast-cooked meals and
snacks, and the booming diner industry of the era employed many of them. An
in-demand occupation, good short-order cooks could be hard to come by, and
needed to be paid relatively well. Insta-Burger King, established in 1953 by
Matthew Burns and Keith J. Kramer in Jacksonville, Florida developed a way to
sell burgers cheaper, by eliminating skilled short-order cooks, replacing them
with unskilled labour through the use of their “Insta-Broiler.” Carl N.
Karcher, founder of Carl’s Jr, followed suit, replacing his cooks with
unskilled kitchen workers and automated kitchen equipment. This is not limited
to the Fast Food industry, from call centers, to airports, from hospitals to
factories, “Deskilling” has replaced skilled labor by the introduction of
technologies operated by semiskilled or unskilled workers. Labour continues to
be at the heart of the value creation proces, it just becomes more and more
embodied in an authoritarian, monitoring and directing, automated Capital
super-structure. It is not “Labour” that Capital is replacing, but rather
“Human Capital.” As Wikipedia describes it “That stock of competences,
knowledge and personality attributes embodied in the ability to perform labor
so as to produce economic value.” So rather than automation, perhaps it makes
more sense to understand this process as the Dehumanization of Capital, the
embedding of human skill into equipment, and the embedding of human labour into
automation.
The technologies that are employed in deskilled production are of course
themselves produced, and their design involves increasingly complex engineering
that employs highly-skilled workers. Skilled labour is not so much replaced,
but rather displaced. Moved away from the direct production of consumer goods,
to the indirect production of capital goods. This also has a depoliticizing
effect. The bargaining power of the masses of deskilled labour is greatly
reduced, since they are more replaceable. While the skilled technologists that
design the software are increasingly separated from the location of direct
production, where surlus-value is created, and thus are abstracted from the
appropriation of surplus value.
Technologists, often do not see themselves as exploited labour. Since they do
not directly toil in the production of consumer goods or services, they often
feel enabled, not exploited by capital. They produce ideas, designs, maybe
prototypes, but never final products for sale. The Capitalists allow them to
realize their technical visions, they don’t directly take anything from them.
At #PlatPol11, during Chris Chesher’s talk he presented a Robot waitress that
was being marketed at a Korean trade show. It was noted that waitresses are
minimum wage labourers, and therefore it was highly unlikely that such a
product would be widely used, since it would be much more expensive to maintain
a crew of Robot waitresses, then human ones. While the Technology industry may
like to show off such novelties like robot pets and servants, Chris noted that
the real money and development was in Military robots, designed to kill.
Capitalism will not automate itself out of existence. It will not eliminate the
workforce, and it will not even try. What it will do is create a deskilled
workforce, ever more dependent on capital for the ability to produce, and
create a divided workforce, that does not share a common proletarian
consciousness, thus diffusing its class power. And, for when and where
discontent does bubble up, it will automate the deadly force required to
repress uprisings. The brutal Enforcement Droid is much more viable than the
pleasant robot servant.
A system that directs production towards the creation of exchange value has
many motivations to create control, since capture of scarce resources is at the
heart of the formation of exchange value, however, it has no motivation to
create general abundance. Only a workers society, where people produced and
shared as equals would be interested in achieving abundance, since more wealth
and less work would be enjoyed by all.
Capital doesn’t automate, it entangles. Its technological apparatus does not
free labour, it encloses, envelopes human life and labour within it – invading,
harassing and extracting. The tremendous wealth-producing power of technology
can only truly reduce toil when the wage system is abolished, and when classes
are eliminated. Only then could the inovation and determination of people be
genuinely applied to using technology to reduce work and increase leisure,
until then it is only a sci-fi mirage.
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