>be monarchist
>realize monarchy is basically dead but still cling to it as an ideal society
>be really into futurism and technology also
>couple months ago have a series of conversations with some close friends of mine about where technology is headed and how it will impact society
>both of us conclude that automation will lead to massive unemployment on an unprecedented scale and necessitate radical social change in the future
>we're puzzled at how society will work when the majority and eventually virtually all people are permanently unemployed
>couple of months later I start reading about Marxism out of curiosity
>discover that Marx basically predicted that eventually the means of production would become so advanced that capitalism would destroy itself and socialism will be an inevitable progression out of capitalism
>am taken aback at how right I think he is
>start reading more into dialectical materialism and historical materialism
>entire view of history and politics is destroyed
Was he right? I just don't see how capitalism will be able to work when the majority of the population can't find work since there won't physically be enough jobs for everyone. I'm honestly starting to think Marx was right about a lot.
Be monarchist
> since there won't physically be enough jobs for everyone
This might very well just be our collective lack of imagination. Majority of workforce worked in agriculture prior to WW2: could have foreseen the amount of jobs that were created in services, white collar industries, business etc. after the proportion of agricultural workers dropped to around 5%?
Marx was right about the problems with capitalism, but his solution was absolutely garbage (also historical materialism is a terrible way of viewing history). It's true that capitalism as we currently know it is unlikely to exist in the future, however communism is almost certainly never going to happen just the same. The most likely outcomes are this, we'll either end up with an AI socialist dictatorship or the capitalists will kill off anyone who doesn't work for them resulting in a capitalist oligarchy.
I get what you're saying, there certainly will be jobs created in the robot and tech industries but the problem with that is is that in the past, technological advancements simply made one worker able to do the work of many. In the future, it's going to make humans unneeded in most, and eventually, pretty much all traditional fields of employment. Plus, reallocating an unskilled laborer into a high-tech field takes time and money to educate them. Additionally, we used to just be able to reallocate workers in one field to another field with relative ease, but automation is taking over both skilled and unskilled labor. Eventually all unskilled labor will be automated and as AI gets better, most skilled labor will be too. We already had an incredibly tough time reallocating factory laborers into the service economy; the effects of deindustrialization are still prevalent in the United States. I think the problem of the future will be even harder to solve.
>also historical materialism is a terrible way of viewing history
Why? It makes a lot of sense to me. Certainly more so than the Great Man meme.
>AI socialist dictatorship
Possibly, but the state will most likely eventually wither away like Engels said. Without having to enforce private property and with the drastic decrease in crime caused by the fact that everyone has their basic life needs taken care of and isn't at risk of starving to death along with advanced mental health treatment will probably render the state useless and society will become self-governing, thus achieving full communism.
>or the capitalists will kill off anyone who doesn't work for them resulting in a capitalist oligarchy.
But the people would have nothing to lose at that point and probably rise up. The capitalists are a tiny majority being kept in power by a relatively small, but heavily armed force. Additionally, aside from it being incredibly immoral, the capitalists will get fucked too since demand will decrease by however many people they kill.
Not him, but I remembering reading that historical materialism stumbles a lot when looking at pre-feudal societies. The conception of egalitarian "primitive communism" is considered especially egregious by modern anthropologists. That isn't really Marx's fault - anthropology was still a very young science when he was writing, but its sad historians still cling to it.
>Why? It makes a lot of sense to me. Certainly more so than the Great Man meme.
While it's true that every man is inevitably a product of his context and historical circumstances, it's also true that a very few individuals have a disproportionate impact on the lives of many. All human interactions - most visibly wealth - follow the power law, so it makes sense.
>ithout having to enforce private property and with the drastic decrease in crime caused by the fact that everyone has their basic life needs taken care of and isn't at risk of starving to death along with advanced mental health treatment will probably render the state useless
Who's going to ensure that everyone has their basic needs taken care of, and has advanced mental and medical treatment available? Most likely the state. Also, even if society becomes self-governing, some form of institution will be needed to transform the opinions of many into a general will.
>But the people would have nothing to lose at that point and probably rise up.
Personal comfort, It's easy to picture a future where the capitalists just hook up everyone into VR and a pack of neetbux while society withers away completely.
>Certainly more so than the Great Man meme.
The Great Man theory is ALSO a terrible way of viewing history. Here's a tip, don't embrace reductionist views of history, it's lazy and stupid.
>but the state will most likely eventually wither away like Engels said
Highly unlikely, if anything the state will become far stronger than it has ever been.
>everyone has their basic life needs taken care of and isn't at risk of starving to death along with advanced mental health treatment
Which will be distributed by the state, presumably under an AI dictatorship capable of ensuring that everyone has their needs fulfilled. Once that happens that state will be so firmly in place that almost no one would ever want to remove it.
>But the people would have nothing to lose at that point and probably rise up
At which point they would all be killed by the robotic war drones that have long replaced the military by this point.
I am afraid that the means of production will remain private, and that we will still be expected to buy things; that scarcity will be organized and that we will have to work bullshit jobs to get money.
>Highly unlikely, if anything the state will become far stronger than it has ever been.
I think that the most probable route for oppressive states nowadays would be to do something like Russia or China does - maximize personal freedom while systematically stiffling political freedom. Just raising a huge stock of consumer-citizens while keeping everything really important under your control.
dear god just stop the meme of "capitalismus is bad because people suffer"
search for data and stop reading german authors
>dear god just stop the meme of "capitalismus is bad because people suffer"
When did op say that?
Have you even read Marx?
I get that historical materialism has its flaws and perhaps is a bit too reductionist, but is the idea that history is generally dictated by the material conditions of societies really flawed? Ideas are generally created in response to changes in the material conditions of a society rendering the old way of doing things inefficient and obsolete. Is this wrong?
>is the idea that history is generally dictated by the material conditions of societies really flawed?
It's obviously true that things possible in one moment of history wouldn't be possible in another - if Genghis Khan were alive today in Mongolia, there'd be no chance of him conquering central Asia. In this way, structure can be said to be history. But I don't see how this structure completely determines the responses of actors to it, especially today when we have the most complex ways of communication yet available to humanity.
I had the same revelation a few weeks ago, i was coming from a neoliberal perspective though
The only way out is to go back and allow slavery again, it's the only way out of the madness that is the future.
You can't defeat Consumerism.
I don't detest /pol/acks that they aren't in favor of Marx, being myself of highest opinion about him. I hate detest them because they hate them for all the wrong and absurd reasons, and can't comprehend the slightest nugget of his actual ideas.
The answer is not Marxism but Traditionalism.
>liking traditional monarchism
>liking technological progress
These two are literally incompatible. We could bring back absolute monarchies or even feudal monarchies but we would need to reduce literacy in population and also reduce the automation of the workforce.
>these two are literally incompatible.
Not at all. Traditional monarchism is not Ludditism and you can have any level of tech with it.
How do you have traditionalism when traditional jobs are all done by robots?
You literally can't, technology is cancer that rots away all tradition.
Not that guy but you should read Industrial Society and its Future.
But user, we've had technological advancements since pre-history. idk if you think Andaman islands were any better than feudal Europe or the Roman Empire but they aren't.
I don't know what you're getting at. Are you being pro-feudal or pro-technology? Neo-reactionaries like that Jew retard Moldbug are your typical American brainlets who completely miss the point of reaction.
>you can have any level of tech with it.
In an ideal world sure, but not in practice. People aren't going to listen to some guy with a crown because he was born to a certain family when they're actually conscious of the world around them. The reason people in the past did was because most of them couldn't read or were so invested in what they were doing because their ability to not starve to death relied on it that they didn't have time to read/be politically active. Once the advancement of productive forces shortened the work day and made printing shit far cheaper, people were able to afford books and actually have time to read them and do shit once they did. Once large amounts of people are unemployed and living on universal basic income because their jobs were automated they'll actually have time to think about shit and will be able to be politically active since they have virtually unlimited free time.
Even a bow and arrow are technology. Or a spearhead. Technology is not antithetical to tradition because we've always had technology along with technological progress in some capacity. Within traditions, we've had technology. I'm not saying tech is the end all of our existence, or that it's constantly good. But it's something we need to make work for us as people. And nothing about technology would stop a society from being a monarchy.
Monarchism is still around the world with people who have iphones and cars and they don't care. I wouldn't object to living under a monarchy so long as I wasn't abused. But then, that could happen under any ideology.
>Majority of workforce worked in agriculture prior to WW2
Or maybe because there is nothing to imagine and the Eternal Optimist is extremely myopic and selectively filtering out the Western European experience? What do you think happened to all 1 million Plebs in Rome in 100 BC? You think they all had happy jobs working in factories? NO. They all rotted in slum like conditions unimaginable today or even Victorian times, and their only salvation was finding employment in conquering armies of ambition-crazy generals who would overthrow the Republic and eventually feed all the poor jobless people with ships of grain imported from Egypt. Same essentially can be said about Third World Countries in the 20th century. You think those millions of people who flooded into the cities and lived in slums were miraculously saved and had a Hollywood ending? Nope. Tens of millions last century lived in desperate poverty in huge urban slums slaving their lives a way, if they were lucky to get work, without the faintest glitter of hope in their lives. Life for the majority of people has been hopeless and this fact of life will only returned the First World after an unprecedented period of full employment.
>Implying Constitutional Monarchy is the same as Traditional Monarchism
The monarchs of the modern day have literally zero power, and there are pretty popular movements to get rid of them too.
i'm talking more the gulf states and bhutan.
>we're puzzled at how society will work when the majority and eventually virtually all people are permanently unemployed
Let me guess you're a wage-laboring lumpenprole.
I own a small amount of investments and spend some time managing them and make a living this way. It will be no different when I own robots instead of stakes in firms that hire humans.
Not him
Dialectic materialism dictates not only that the ideas of a society are the product of it's material capabilities and conditions, but those very conditions are also dictated by the very ideas it produces. The intermingle of the ideas and the material conditions shapes both simultaneously.
>EVERYONE WILL BE POOR EXCEPT ME XDDDD
Except if people don't have jobs to earn wages from, they'll be too poor to buy your stupid shit and you'll get fucked over too.
Not when robots are able to do everything cheaper and better than a human living on sustenance wages. Not just agriculture and manufacture, but intellectual fields with AI.
The only occupations will be owner or robots, land and natural resources, or worthless filth who only exist to stroke the egos of those who believe themselves to be good, moral and religious, to be the subjects of their aid and missionary work, to be the LARPing playthings of the rich.
>Big firms start making robots to do the job people do now
>They realise it's more profitable to not sell the robots, outcompeting everyone
>their shares skyrocket
>You realized that the future is in one of those firms, bought shares and now is rich. Congratulations
>You didn't realized that, your shares plummeted and now is fucked
Here are your possibilities
>EVERYONE WILL BE POOR EXCEPT ME XDDDD
No, everyone but me and anyone else that doesn't own investments.
>Except if people don't have jobs to earn wages from, they'll be too poor to buy your stupid shit and you'll get fucked over too.
That's a stupid way of looking at economics. You've been reading too much about what leads to economic collapse. The GDP or whatever economic output measurement equivalent may be lower when I no longer produce fro the poor. Pareto efficiency may be bad. Under standard economic models this would be considered bad.
What you failed to consider is that fact that I don't need to partake in trade except to obtain commodities I can not produce because I don't own the appropriate resources or robots. That means I will be trading with other owners, not trading for wage-labor. Any situation that I would trade for wage labor, I would be better off trading for a new robot instead.
Of course this will decimate GDP per capita, because GDP per capita is brought down by lots of hungry mouths that do not add anything to the new economy.
But I will essentially be living on the futurist equivalent of a sustenance plantation. Robot slave output will not be directed to labor, it will be directed to me, without any payment or trade taking place. I will own some farmland, some farmbots, and possibly dabble in some other industry to exchange for luxury goods I am unable to produce myself.
I don't need mass consumerism to be able to live comfortably by owning robots. Neither does anyone else that owns robots unless they malinvested in the mass consumption industries and overproduce for the new market of robot owner producers.
If your question is if I own investments in tech that aren't social media, the answer is yes.
What's going to happen in the future though is if a firm can make a robot and refuses to sell, a competing firm will be founded to make a similar robot. This firm will seek investors. Investors will own the firm and the rights to the robots. The first company will not profit from this, so rather than face this alternative, they may be inclined to sell, even if it's only last generation robots, in order to reap profits that another firm would otherwise earn.
Either way as long as you and other investors have enough of a slush fund, it's likely you'll be able to get your hands on some robots.
The threshold that must be reached is ownership of enough land, resources and robots to maintain self-sufficiency with some production surplus. What will be potentially painful is rising property taxes, since the taxes will make you stop being self-sufficient while more efficient owners are able to stay ahead of it.
>virgin fantasies Episode 124.
>i've been brainwashed to believe that my job determines my social worth
>What's going to happen in the future though is if a firm can make a robot and refuses to sell, a competing firm will be founded to make a similar robot. This firm will seek investors. Investors will own the firm and the rights to the robots. The first company will not profit from this, so rather than face this alternative, they may be inclined to sell, even if it's only last generation robots, in order to reap profits that another firm would otherwise earn.
>What are patents?
>What is entrance barrier?
>What is "let's fuck anyone else who tries to compete us"?
>Inb4 Elon Musk
>What it
Marx was right about almost everything. Most people who discredit him haven't read him at all and their criticisms are so unbelievably fucking stupid they're not worth debunking. Read Marx not Marxists if you want to understand him.
>What are patents?
Things that can be worked around, at some economic inefficiency. That economic inefficiency allows the patent holder to earn higher profits, but those profits can only be realized if they sell.
>What is entrance barrier?
Something that can be overcome with enough capital. I may not personally have it, but firms don't have to be singularly and wholly owned. Entrance barrier only works because the original firms can outcompete the new firm. It doesn't work if the original firm refuses to compete by not selling robots.
>What is "let's fuck anyone else who tries to compete us"?
Yes, robot armies are a particularly troubling conundrum. I can only hope that the state will maintain armed forces and regulate private ownership of robot armies in order to limit this problem. I and anyone else that relies on the state to prevent private individuals from fucking me over, will be fucked over if private robot armies become more powerful than the state.
No. Value isn't simply materialistic, otherwise prostitution or hired dating wouldn't exist. Even then, robots are great but can't do any plumbing or other jobs that require both strength and dexterity and versatility to that degree and won't be able to in our lifetime.
There is no end to things that can remain scarce and therefore hold some value, even in a world with Star Trek replicators. Even the attention from someone you like/admire/has the attention of others has value.
>but is the idea that history is generally dictated by the material conditions of societies really flawed?
Yes. Different groups will have different approaches to say, a great depression. Material determinism rejects the fundamental human condition and just culture in general.
>That's a stupid way of looking at economics.
Stopped reading there
>Marx was right about almost everything
He was right about the problems with capitalism, but his idea of a solution was pants on head retarded.
>actually listening to what some bearded jew says