What would a world without work look like? How would we achieve that?
Legendary activist James Boggs, writing in 1963, thought that the United States already had the means to create a post-work society: “Many people in the United States are aware that, with automation, enough could be easily produced in this country so that there would be no need for the majority of Americans to work.” But that hasn’t exactly panned out the way that Boggs envisioned it would. Why not? What can we take away from Boggs’s insights in what feels like an increasingly volatile labor market? Building on our last episode about technological progress, AI, and job displacement, we investigate Boggs’s vision for a post-work world.
Show Notes
The American Revolution by James Boggs
“James Boggs, the ‘Outsiders,’ and the Challenge of Postindustrial Society,” by Cedric Johnson
Alyssa Battistoni writing in The Nation about Aaron Benanav’s book, Automation and the Future of Work.
Article critiquing the “long downturn” theory
Elon Musk’s Dystopian AI Future
Credits
Theme music by our youngest brother Tate.
Cover art by Arthur Santoro.
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