We are joined once again by Nick Chavez, a Marxist mechanical engineer, to discuss the political economy of automation – providing the groundwork for a better understanding of how automation actually operates in the market, the workplace, the interests of capital, and the lives of labor. What happens when the living are dominated by the dead? What happens when you work too much or not work enough? What happens when the bottom keeps falling out of a stagnated service economy? What happens when capital controls the forces of automation? We need only look at the world to find the answer to these questions.

Some stuff we reference:

••• The Present and Future of Engineers | Nick Chavez | Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2021/10/field-notes/THINKING-ABOUT-COMMUNISM

••• Smart Machines and Service Work: Automation in an Age of Stagnation | Jason E. Smith http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789143188

••• Automation and the Future of Work | Aaron Benanav https://www.versobooks.com/books/3717-automation-and-the-future-of-work

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Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)