The Progress in the exponential AI technology today, will going to bring a revolutionary social change, unprecedented in human history. This long-awaited radical social transformation, which Karl Marx (1818-1881) and his socialist/communist followers have predicted may be finally on the horizon. However, unfortunately for them, it will not happen in the way they envisioned.
Marx forecasted that the advancement of productive forces, particularly through industrialization, would lead to a massive increase in the working class population. However, the reality that we see today seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Instead the working class increasing in numbers, which Marx believed would serve as the vanguard of his socialist revolution, gradually shrinking and may eventually completely disappear soon in the future.
The rapid deployment of exponential AI technology at present employed across every social production sector, rendering the human labour redundant or obsolete in a decades or two, perhaps sooner. This transformation will have a profound impact on society, requiring us to start contemplating how we will adapt to this new reality.
In my youth I was a Marxist labour activist and still remain great admirer of Karl Marx. However when I studied more about the Marxian working class “labour” theory, I began to diverge from its socialist ideology. This led to the publication of my book titled; titled; "AN ALTERNATIVE TO MARXIAN SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM; REDUCTION IN WORKING HOUR THEORY", in the year 1981. The basic premise of the theory is; “Human labour RELATION (compulsion) in order to obtain their means of subsistence is the root-cause of labour exploitation. This exploitation in turn gives rise to inequality, injustice, corruption and most of the social ills. Therefore, along with the progress of the productive forces (science and technology) the working hours needs to be gradually reduced to zero to form a new Zero Work egalitarian society" I now refer it as "Zero Work Society(ZWT) or Zero Work Theory".
This theory stands in contrast to the Marxist theory of class exploitation and the class struggle which asserts that ruling classes have historically exploited the labouring class, from slavery to feudalism which continues today under the capitalism. Marxism claims that the private ownership of the means of production is the root cause of labour exploitation. Therefore, it advocates for the working class should unite to rise against the capitalist class and finally overthrow the capitalist system through a forceful (violent) revolution. The goal is to abolish private ownership of the means of production and establish a socialist or communist state system under the dictatorship of the proletariat, where labour exploitation on the working class would cease to exist.
The fundamental difference between ZWT and Marxian socialism lies in their distinct understandings of labour exploitation. According to Marxian socialist theory, the labour exploitation on workers in essence is that, the capitalist exploits workers “labour power” for the extraction of “Surplus Value” (profit) that in general supposed to be 100%, identified as the rate (percentage) of labour exploitation on the workers, which Marx calls as the “relative labour exploitation. However, being a worker, I realized that this Marxian concept of relative labour exploitation raises so many fundamental questions to which it has no answers.
For instance, consider two workers—one working 10 hours a day and the other working 8 hours a day. If we measure the rate of relative labour exploitation (surplus labour) on these workers as 100%, that leads to the conclusion that they are equally exploited. However, this sweeping notion of Marxian relative labour exploitation, overlooks or fails to see some of the most important aspects involved in the labour exploitation such as the length of working hours also the compensation in return and other relevant factors of labour exploitation that the workers experience in their daily life.
Let us take another scenario where one worker faces 100% relative labour exploitation (surplus value) but is underpaid, while the second worker is highly paid but subjected to as much as 200 to 300% in terms of relative labour exploitation, resulting in his employer earning 2 to 3 times the surplus value or the profit, to put it simply. In these two individual cases the kind of labour exploitation that they experience is categorically different which the Marxian labour theory fails to recognize . What about a self-employed who works 12 hours a day to get meagre income, how does the Marxian relative labour exploitation theory apply in his case. What about the unemployed who suffer immensely without any wage income, Does he undergo any particular kind of labour exploitation, what kind, if any? Marxian relative labour exploitation theory totally fails to answer any of these questions comprehensively. This the situation in ground that millions of workers like me undergo daily in their life. This lack in the understanding of labour exploitation on the workers leads to the dismal failure of the Marxian economic state systems, which we witnessing in today socialist systems of the communist states.
In contrast to the Marxian labour exploitation theory, the ZWT contends that there are mainly 4 kinds of labour exploitations on the labouring classes throughout the human history;
1.
Subsistence Sustenance exploitation (measures of low income or poverty).
2.
“Relative” labour exploitation (capitalist marginal profit, Marxian concept)
3.
“Productive” labour exploitation (capitalist high profit margins, Marxian
terminology)
4. Absolute
labour exploitation (measured by the length of working hours).
According to
the ZWT; Marxian socialist or communist systems similar to the capitalist
system could never do away any of these labour exploitations on the workers as
long as the human labour remains necessary for social production. Only the
total elimination of the human wage labour in the social production (which is
made possible by the AI technological progress today) can end the labour
exploitation and all the inequalities injustice and the evils which results
from it. ZWT believes that the Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the first step
in achieving the goals of Zero Work Society.
Another major difference between the Marxian Socialism and the ZWT lies in their historical perspective known as “historical materialism”. Marxism views human history as the history of class struggle between the labour exploiting class and the labour exploited class, owning to their opposite class interest. These conflicting class interest eventually boils down into complete overthrow of the existing social system and establishing a new social order. It happened in the slave system, feudal system all of which gave way to the capitalist system. Marxism strongly believes that the continued class struggle between the working class and the Capitalist class eventually will end up in violent overthrow of capitalist system and establishing a more equitable human society sooner or later, where the labour exploitation on workers will be eliminated.
In contrast to Marxian ‘historical materialism’ the Zero Work Theory categorises human history according to the progress of science and technology in different stages of human history. The first stage commenced with the early humans started using rudimentary tools as a substitute to their body parts specially their limbs to help them in their day to day labour to fulfil their basic need for survival. The primitive tools slowly progressed into more sophisticated tools as the replacement or assistance in their day to day labour work. The invention of wheels is most important among them. This primary stage of technological development, increasing the productivity of labor many folds, continued for hundreds and thousands of years become far more advanced throughout the middle ages.
The second stage emerged at around the 18th century with the advent of steam engines that further evolved into internal combustion engines run by the fossil fuels, progressed into electric motors merging with the machine tools popularly known as the Industrial Revolution. It significantly reduced the reliance on the human and animal hard physical labour with unimaginable magnitude of strength and power, unparalleled in human history. These machine tool able to do heavy lifting hard labour tirelessly equal to thousands of horsepower’s, nevertheless, it always needed the humans intelligent brain or the cognitive power to guide them to perform the given task.
The third and final stage or human labour replacement is the social production began with the advent of Semiconductors or the microchip digital revolution. The Exponential growth of the microprocessors started the era known as the Artificial Intelligence (AI). As we entered the 21st century the AI robotics automation started rapidly replacing humans (biological) intelligence with its human brain like neurological machine deep learning, Generative, Transformer, Liquid neural algorithms. AI technology is getting far more superior to the humans biological brain in the performance of all human work.
While Karl Marx was undoubtedly a visionary thinker of his time, the limitations of the technological advancement during the era he lived in, specifically when he wrote the Communist Manifesto, in 1848, prevented him from foreseeing the accelerating industrial progress opening up a new exponential technological paradigm of cybernetic revolution. The industrial revolution of his time did not allow him to anticipate that the technological progress in the coming future would render the labour power of his cherished working class redundant within a couple of centuries.
The ZWT owns its existence to the unique historical times that it (I) was living in. The time was the latter part of 20th century when the world was witnessing unprecedented progress in the field of science and technology on the one hand and the colossal failures in the communist states on the other hand while the capitalist states going still strong. The news of robots in the workplace and promise of abundance of energy in the form nuclear fusion (cold fusion!!!) everywhere in the science and technological media that I was reading. It gave me the new historical perspective with glimpse of the coming future that the advancement of technological front combined with the energy would render the human labour eventually redundant or obsolete in the social production. However I did not expect to see it in my life time.
What intrigues me even today; despite witnessing the exponential AI technological progress that evidently removes the need of human wage labour in the social production, both the capitalist and communist ideologues still arguing human wage labour is important as it was before in social production to maintain the social health and wellbeing of the masses. While the ZWT sees the wage labour is drudgery a form of human slavery which needs to be eliminated with the introduction of Universal Basic Income (UBI)as soon as possible with the help of AI Technology.
In conclusion, while Karl Marx's ideas were ground-breaking for his time and I still believe that the Marxian theoretical framework of understanding capitalism is still relevant today. However the limitations of the historical technological developmental stage in which he was living prevented him from envisioning the full scope of technological progress of the future that we are witnessing today. In the contemporary world, the Zero Work Society propelled by the Universal Basic Income (UBI) that will liberated the masses from their daily wage slavery to become free, and establish a democratic, equitable, egalitarian society IN WHICH HUMAN CREATIVITY AND COMPASSION IS NOT CONSTRAINED BY ITS ECONOMIC INCENTIVES as a promising alternative to the human labour compelled, capitalist, socialist or communist states.
(Subject to further revision)
Valerian Texeira. India, Karnataka, Mangalore.