"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality"

That was the warning top physicist Stephen Hawking delivered when asked "Have you thought about the possibility of technological unemployment, where we develop automated processes that ultimately cause large unemployment by performing jobs faster and/or cheaper than people can perform them?" The quest was asked during a Reddit Ask Me Anything session

Back in 2013 we outlined the alternative we should organise for "In the era of robots, vertical farms and libertarian communism, a life of leisure will not just be the preserve of a small elite, luxury will be the birthright of all. Under capitalism, automation drives up unemployment or drives people into “bullshit jobs”, in an anarchist, post-capitalist society, the slogan, “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”, would be a reality.

How we organise to overthrow the capitalist system and how we replace the functions of the state, is another day's discussion. Here, the line is drawn at the fact that the material conditions to realise the abolition of labour and a society of abundance, exist in the here and now; If we want such a society, it is up to us to “make it so”

--

Read more at our Basic Anarchism collection