Four Futures Life After Capitalism (Audible Audio Edition) Peter Frase Bob Souer Tantor Audio Books
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Peter Frase argues that increasing automation and a growing scarcity of resources, thanks to climate change, will bring it all tumbling down. In Four Futures, Frase imagines how this postcapitalist world might look, deploying the tools of both social science and speculative fiction to explore what communism, rentism, socialism, and exterminism might actually entail. Could the current rise of real-life robocops usher in a world that resembles Ender's Game? And sure, communism will bring an end to material scarcities and inequalities of wealth - but there's no guarantee that social hierarchies, governed by an economy of "likes", wouldn't rise to take their place.
A whirlwind tour through science fiction, social theory and the new technologies already shaping our lives, Four Futures is a balance sheet of the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful - and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if those movements fail.
Four Futures Life After Capitalism (Audible Audio Edition) Peter Frase Bob Souer Tantor Audio Books
In "Four Futures", Peter Frase argues that 21st century Capitalism, haunted by the specters of ecological catastrophe and automation, is in a contradictory dual crisis. Ecological catastrophe generates problems of scarcity, while automation generates the problems/promises of abundance. For Frase, it is the interaction of these two opposed dynamics that make our historical moment full of both promise and danger. We can neither return to a "Fordist" past, nor hold on to neoliberal capitalism. For Frase, something new is coming, and as Rosa Luxembourg said, it is either a "transition to socialism or regression into barbarism."Frase's speculative writing is not a secular eschatology setting a firm end date to capitalism. Following the sociologist Wolfgang Streeck, he warns against viewing abstractions like "capitalism" and "socialism" as social systems with discrete endings; a mistake too many socialists and apocalyptic preachers have made. In sketching out possibilities rather than likelihoods, Frase takes automation as a constant, with ecological crisis and class power as variables. This model posits that, depending on contingencies and political developments, we can end up in a world of either scarcity or abundance, alongside either hierarchy or equality. Such a typology leaves us with the possibility of Communism (Abundance & Equality), Socialism (Scarcity & Equality), Rentism (Abundance & Hierarchy), or Exterminism (Scarcity & Hierarchy). Frase dedicates a chapter to each of these futures, and in each chapter emphasizes a key theme that is relevant to the world we live in now.
Unlike other publications on such topics, which have become an entire sub-genre in recent years, "Four Futures" emphasizes the importance of politics, particularly a politics of class struggle. As a result, Frase avoids the technocratic-utopianism of books like "The Second Machine Age", and certain strands of Accelerationism, which are part of a larger 21st century philosophical movement known as "Speculative Realism". Avoiding the nihilist fatalism of the Left, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek has called a Left-Fukuyamaism, Frase successfully writes a work of "speculative social science", presenting Dystopias that function as critique and Utopias to build towards.
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Four Futures Life After Capitalism (Audible Audio Edition) Peter Frase Bob Souer Tantor Audio Books Reviews
I found this very thought provoking and logically laid out. The author does not try to predict a specific future but rather lays out various factors and four extemes, with the reality being probably some blend of them.
It's a bit scattered and surface level - the scenarios are barely sketched out and then go so quickly on tangents that at first I was confused and expecting deeper discussions of scenarios until I realized I was almost done with the book. There are some interesting references and it's a short read, so maybe worth taking a look.
Nice work, exploring four scenarios for the future, which of course are already present in society just not widely distributed. Compelling, references to different science fiction; distopias and utopias bolster his arguments and make the work very accessible. Its very clear which of the 4 futures makes sense to Peter, and to me so if you are looking for an unbiased view - this isn't it.
I have bought several copies of the book to share with friends and my granddaughter. This is an excellent book which lays out four possible scenarios to contemplate the future. It is a very readable and thoughtful book. The author has a good grasp of Marxism and unlike many Marxists knows how to apply Marxist ideas to the problems we are facing today. The author adds humor and examples from popular culture which makes the book very readable. As the author states, "I hope to reclaim the long left-wing tradition of mixing imaginative speculation with political economy." I think he does this very successfully. The author's idea to decommodify labor and have a universal basic income are compelling ideas for the future.
In Four Futures Life After Capitalism, Peter Frase uses metaphor from popular culture, for example, Star Trek, to describe what life might look like after capitalism, whether we evolve into each future or have it thrust upon us on two axis equality v. hierarchy and abundance v. scarcity.
Communism is equality and abundance. He does not specify how this will look exactly, but he uses a citizens dividend as a possible route to get there (the dividend gives labor a higher supply cost for work, which raises wages and increases abundance as everyone can buy what they need or maybe, if people don't work, less of what they want but don't need).
Increased automation is a possibility I see here, which would give us the same amount of stuff for less work. There is also the problem of professional slaves, like doctors and especially nurses, who are needed and cannot be automated away. They will begin to resent an idle nation, as would soldiers or astronauts. There is also the question of whether the dividend was just for adults or will be adjusted for family size. We already have one just for the kids, but it is about twelve sizes too small and some only collect it at year's end rather than when needed at every paycheck.
Rentism is hierarchy and abundance. The key feature of this future is ownership of intellectual property, both for production and consumption (from branding to bioscience). This also includes land rent paid by the many to the few. I support an ownership alternative, where workers own the means of production of their company, including intellectual property. You could use social insurance collections to buy employee companies, with the contribution equalized so each employee gets the same amount of stock per period.
Going back to the abundance problem, I would develop in-home agriculture (hydroponics and growing meat from stem cells). These homes would be expensive, so the cooperative would give you no interest loans to buy them and may even build them for you. These cooperatives would buy the land and hold it for their members, solving the problem of land rent. I would also keep the benefits of creating intellectual property closer to the actual developers rather than giving them to the capitalists and their pet CEOs. You will get more innovation, not less.
Socialism is where equality meets scarcity. Eco-socialism, which Joel Kovel proposed in his 2000 run for president, falls into this category. Basement agriculture in cooperative built homes could also be a solution here - one that involves government less (although NASA is developing the whole habitat angle, or was, for a mission to Mars). Running out of resources is the theme to this future, although I still think Mathus was wrong. We will always figure out how to grow food, clean water and air and deal with floods (and maybe even control carbon) and will use government, industry and cooperatives to do so. Currently, there is no urgency, however, because enough of the middle class has been bought off with their toys and wages to ignore the urgency of upcoming scarcity. Socialism is never to be seen as a permanent state - it is the road to eventual communism and abundance. If cities can rise out of the Arabian dessert, most anything is possible in dealing with scarcity. The problem is scarcity of distribution, not of actual resources.
Exterminism is where hierarchy meets scarcity. In this future, the elite separate themselves from society and let society begin to dies off or be killed through prison, police violence, war, environmental disaster (see Flint) and cutting welfare benefits. The evidence that this is happening now is hard to dispute. Indeed, Trump seems to champion Muslim exterminism. Zero population growth, rather than dealing with scarcity is a way to keep poor people from breeding - more exterminism. How do we fight this? Blow the whistle and increase that Child Tax Credit that I mentioned above. In cooperatives, every member is in an enclave and every person could be valuable. There are many under-educated geniuses out there who have been given poor educations because of their darker skin. Just look at the drug trade. These are complex enterprises. Recruiting everyone ends scarcity.
My impression in reading this book is not that these are four discrete futures, but four trends that are going on simultaneously. The conclusion of the book states exactly that. Now that we know, we can start doing something about it.
In "Four Futures", Peter Frase argues that 21st century Capitalism, haunted by the specters of ecological catastrophe and automation, is in a contradictory dual crisis. Ecological catastrophe generates problems of scarcity, while automation generates the problems/promises of abundance. For Frase, it is the interaction of these two opposed dynamics that make our historical moment full of both promise and danger. We can neither return to a "Fordist" past, nor hold on to neoliberal capitalism. For Frase, something new is coming, and as Rosa Luxembourg said, it is either a "transition to socialism or regression into barbarism."
Frase's speculative writing is not a secular eschatology setting a firm end date to capitalism. Following the sociologist Wolfgang Streeck, he warns against viewing abstractions like "capitalism" and "socialism" as social systems with discrete endings; a mistake too many socialists and apocalyptic preachers have made. In sketching out possibilities rather than likelihoods, Frase takes automation as a constant, with ecological crisis and class power as variables. This model posits that, depending on contingencies and political developments, we can end up in a world of either scarcity or abundance, alongside either hierarchy or equality. Such a typology leaves us with the possibility of Communism (Abundance & Equality), Socialism (Scarcity & Equality), Rentism (Abundance & Hierarchy), or Exterminism (Scarcity & Hierarchy). Frase dedicates a chapter to each of these futures, and in each chapter emphasizes a key theme that is relevant to the world we live in now.
Unlike other publications on such topics, which have become an entire sub-genre in recent years, "Four Futures" emphasizes the importance of politics, particularly a politics of class struggle. As a result, Frase avoids the technocratic-utopianism of books like "The Second Machine Age", and certain strands of Accelerationism, which are part of a larger 21st century philosophical movement known as "Speculative Realism". Avoiding the nihilist fatalism of the Left, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek has called a Left-Fukuyamaism, Frase successfully writes a work of "speculative social science", presenting Dystopias that function as critique and Utopias to build towards.
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