Aaron Benanav’s Automation and the Future of Work, is, first and foremost, a whirlwind of a treatise. In a mere 99 pages (excluding preface), the author traces a line from the utopian ideals of Sir Thomas More through the socialist movements of the middle to late 19th century through the universal basic income (UBI) evangelists of the current age. Throughout the book, Benanav never strays far from the controlling thesis that we are living in an age of protracted economic stagnation due in large part to industrial overcapacity and corporate financialization of capital rather than investment in facilities, equipment and personnel. While the line he traces is a bold one, it largely curves around what we would think, based upon the book’s title, the primary objective would be. Much of the book focuses on presenting data and arguments that automation, contrary to what many futurists and politicians declare, is not the cause of economic stagnation and widespread job insecurity. He does take occasional note of how automation projects have been attempted (often unsuccessfully), but it is always with the intention of reinforcing how the robots aren’t the sole or even leading cause of modern-day workers’ woes (44).

On the subject of the ‘future of work’, he is equally evasive. The first three-quarters of the book are mostly devoted to what work was and is rather than what it could be. In the final sections of the book, he does set his sights towards the horizon, but the reader could be forgiven if his vision of a post-scarcity society driven by the maxim omina sunt communia is a bit unrealistic (84). He is, however, clear that automation can play a part in this imagined societal transformation, but it cannot and will not bring about the transformation by itself — the technology must be directed towards that end by the masses and not left to the whims and fancies of Silicon Valley technocrats (11).

That being said, I do not want this to be a book review. Benanav’s analysis is thought provoking even if we take the book and its thesis for what it is. His book was published in 2020 while the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing and even then his take on automation’s power would have been seen as revolutionary. Since then we have seen the rise of almost ubiquitous AI integration and the development of increasingly sophisticated robotic systems that make his claims all the more radical. Still, even with the glut of AI ‘powered’ apps and the seemingly endless sums of money being shoveled into their development, it takes only a bit of clear headedness to see the truth in Benanav’s words. Rather than workers being replaced by AI and displaced by automation, we see how “[t]echnologies that empower line workers are not pursued, whereas technologies allowing for detailed surveillance of those same workers are… hot commodities” (41). Employers are quick to implement AI-enabled software that helps them squeeze as much productivity out of human employees as possible and permits the quantification of virtually every scrap of data imaginable.

While it is true that most employers spend more money on worker wages and salaries than any other line item, the fact remains that wages in nearly all industries and sectors have faced extraordinary downward pressure for decades through a combination of political and corporate efforts. The specter of international trade agreements making it easier (and cheaper) to move some production overseas is part of the problem, but this is only one of several other reasons job insecurity has been on the rise in the developed world. Unemployment (i.e. the complete absence of wage income) is relatively low in most of the leading economies — underemployment, however, is rampant although typically not spoken about in as dire tones as the former. This manifests in workers feeling trapped in low-wage, low productivity service jobs, top-down austerity measures that remove worker protections and fevered financialization of capital that shifts money from tangible investments into business deals and executive enrichment schemes (35). We see this every day as welfare programs are under constant attack at the same time we’re being told that the economy is strong — wages remain paused as inflation sucks the value out of our time and Wall Street strips whatever is left over.

In the United States, terms like ‘right to work state’ and ‘welfare reform’ have long been familiar. However, as economic growth continues to falter and business interests become more emboldened, we have seen these ideas of job ‘flexibility’ encroach into Western Europe and Scandinavia, threatening the longstanding protections enjoyed by workers in those countries (52). This, I believe, speaks to the globalization of financialization — nowhere is safe from corporations and financiers trying to make a dollar anywhere and everywhere. In the wake of the pandemic there have been some isolated successes in fighting back (e.g. within Starbucks and Amazon) but those victories were won in fairly liberal jurisdictions and only after extraordinary resistance from the employers. Additionally, these were in the service sector, not manufacturing, so Benanav’s observations viz-a-viz manufacturing overcapacity remain intact. Employment ‘flexibility’ and maintaining control over human employees’ wages was behind the resistance, not the desire for total automation.

The concern Benanav voices most clearly in the latter part of his book is that socioeconomic alternatives to the current neoliberal hegemony have been fewer and less radical in recent decades thus giving the illusion that only tweaks within capitalism are possible rather than a wholesale replacement of it. This appears in many ways, but most vividly in his wariness towards universal basic income, an idea heralded on the left (not surprisingly) and the right (surprisingly) as an answer to the supposedly automated future we’re approaching. The idea of UBI is predicated upon the assumption that the fundamental mechanics of the economy (i.e. the buying and selling of goods and services) will remain in place. In the absence of wage work, however, continued consumption would require new ways to grease the wheels. While a UBI is a superficially attractive notion, it’s difficult to see how any such system, still being engineered by capitalists through their puppets in government, would assist in making society more equitable. This is especially true of systems in which people might see a small ‘allowance’ but would still have to work in an ever more precarious market to make up the balance. In other words, “UBI would empower workers without disempowering capital” (78).

As we look into the future, what is it Benanav wants us to see? It’s not entirely apparent. Unlike most books in this vein, Automation and the Future of Work does not want to lay out a roadmap forward, at least not one with clear landmarks and legible signage along the way. Benanav has laid out ideas for us to contemplate, but the ultimate outcome is one neither he nor anyone else can claim to know. Could a total restructuring of human society be accomplished without enormous upheaval and violence? Such a change would have to be done in all countries and among all groups of people; elsewise you would continue to have capital exercising power, albeit in different ways. Possibly the biggest question that this book leaves unanswered is this: how would we go about deconditioning ourselves and detoxing from capitalism and wage work? Such a transition would, as Benanav alludes, likely require emancipatory automation, at least until society could find itself firmly along this new path and the systems required to turn work (the transactional existence of trading one’s time and energy for monetary compensation that allows one to continue existing) into labor (the application of one’s time and energy to personal passions/goals and social betterment). This could be expedited by advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence systems taught to determine the most equitable and socially beneficial course of action rather than the most efficient or profitable (90). In the end, we will likely need automation to bring about a better world and life for us all, but it will have to be done with the knowledge that the tools we employ cannot do it alone — humans must still provide the vision even if the robots can provide the muscle.