Technology and Post Capitalism
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- čas přidán 24. 09. 2017
- On this panel:
David Harvey, Paul Mason, Aaron Bastani, Alice Bell and James Meadway.
Since the inventions of agriculture and writing, technology has endured an intimate relationship with politics, serving to both disrupt and uphold concentrations of power. But do the technologies of the new century, from computing to synthetic biology, create a new set of possibilities? Are they the bridge to a different kind of society?
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I can almost hear Harvey's sighs
Loved Paul Mason's comment about Uber roughly 41:00 in
This was the single most forward-thinking conversation of the century!
getting paul mason to define neoliberalism when david harvey's sitting right next to him is hilarious hahaha
As they say in the US south, "Bless him."
Is he a fool, or a stooge?
That's the key question.
Let's just say that at least one of the panelists is just not on the same intellectual level of David Harvey.
@@vruz lol Paul Mason a dumbass
I think Paul is very intelligent and talented, and good faith; but very eccentric.
If he's got something to say on a given topic, I think he's always worth hearing; but he should always be taken with a massive pinch of salt, and you should never take his word for things.
David Harvey is the GOAT
So true!
Really enjoyed the video. Just a suggestion: would be handy to have a line on each of the speakers and links to there social media in the description.
Damn son what a great entertaining panel debate. I loved Alice Bell's contributions, and something that came to mind throughout was the tension between a sort of duty to get on board with and look for these positive externalities (or dreams of.luxury communism) of living within a big data world (this hype is default in STEM academia), and our continuing alienation which I feel is remedied by small scale democratic social entities that relate to production such as energy or food production.
Perhaps this is just the idyll of a rural homestead or commune but the urban setting is of utmost importance. I think there is clearly a tension between having centralised efficient resources, from food and transport to libraries and tool/gadget/furniture/toy exchanges, and the desire to take personal ownership for agency or convenience, and if you cannot trust or abide the way such public goods are managed e.g. Uber, mobike, smart meters. A more democratic management of these public goods of urban life would seem to help plenty, and I wish we could see cities transformed for public space, pedestrian and bicycle travel, water harvesting, food growing, workshops, goods repair and more activities to engage individuals more with the things that matter to their survival and provide social and learning experiences.
This seems in tension with creating abundance on the face of it, but how significant (and addressable) are the inefficiencies of our current wasteful modes of large-scale production or at least their consumption.
I felt a luddite at times listening to the debate when the prospect of internet, data and ai technology providing abundance and efficiency failed to convince or excite me. Largely Paul (and James idea of a public Uber) utterly failed to excite me when talking about large scale harnessing of data or IT.
I can't help but feel the evidence is lacking that, assessed in totality with externalities, modern production of housing, furniture, household goods, food are better than older methods, let alone optimal. I think by tripping to the new we fail to properly harness older brilliant technologies, and I think we will move toward less waste and alienation not by following the hype of tech but by rigorously assessing existing methods with respect to our nature, the social outcome and our environmental impact.
Things are clear to David Harvey, including the financial sector.
reading Marx makes a lot of things clear. he's also brilliant
Harvey is spot on
Nice to hear a plug for FairPhone
What an excellent excellent session - lots of things to be hopeful about!
It is interesting how this panel in one hand preaches for progress and openness, and, at the same time, promotes this localism and "us"-centric views on possible solutions. Isn't it obvious these two views are incompatible?
if your basing your 'efficiency' on cost, money or on a capitalistic view, on the things you would do to solve problems created by capitalism it self. you will never come up with a solution to overcome a problem that is created with in the same system it self.
''the problems that exist in the world today can not be solve by the level of thinking that created them'
Academia as a public good, in an ideal world. Have you seen the cost of access to a number of academic journals? However, the British Library has definitely kept me from feeling completely isolated.
Harvey @ 10:45 etc - SPOT ON. It's about power and the abuse of power.
Technology democratises-decentralises-and-devolves fomenting-and-fostering a bottom-up re-organisation of both society and economy
So the banks will rescue platform capitalism from it's own demise and call it cooperative platform ( capitalism) , yes of course they would, so they would mortgage us a job now as well as a home ?
Alice makes great points
All of the people on the stage - how many of them are wearing fair trade or worker co-op created shoes, socks, underwear, eyeglasses, shirts, belts etc.? We live in a capitalist society and the majority of us have no choice in how we can use our money - if we want to buy socks, underwear, shoes etc. our money will flow to a capitalist organization and not to a worker co-op.
All of the talk in the world will do no good unless we organize the labor force to give alternatives - and we can use technology and data to enable people to organize and share information with others - so that we can find out if there is a worker co-op that manufactures socks...
But just because we have a workers co-op manufacturing socks or a T-shirt - doesn't mean that the sock or T-shirt looks boring or uninteresting. You can still have a great designer working in a worker co-op. The point I am trying to make is - all the speakers talk a great talk - but how many of them can walk the walk? And if we were to say that socialist speakers could only wear clothing created by worker owned and worker run enterprises... then the speakers would have to be naked on the stage.
So how can we cloth the socialists? How can we make brands which are manufactured through truly socialist enterprises? Well we cannot do it by rejecting technology or other capitalist systems - we can only do it by using tech and co-operating with the existing capitalist systems. The fact that I can watch this video on CZcams is a prime example - CZcams is a capitalist system - but you can upload and educate people on social programs through CZcams videos. We can start a Facebook page on worker co-op's which will lead to us finding clothes manufactured through worker owned and worker run enterprises.
Just having fair trade coffee is not enough - we need fair trade undies too. And eventually it would be great to see fully dressed speakers on the stage who can honestly say that they spend their money only on "walking the walk" - only supporting enterprises that fairly share the profits of labor among its workers.
Greenfibres
If we want to change the class relationship we might be better concentrating on transforming the workplace via worker cooperatives a la Mondragon and the Cleveland project. We could then bring more ordinary people with us into the bright new high tech future. This is in the Labour manifesto (a major commitment actually) but it doesn't seem to be being discussed. Perhaps it's not sexy enough. Dave Harvey would be the man to ask about it. A real missed opportunity.
Poor David Harvey having to listen to the half faulty theory from some of the other panelists
Paul Mason is confused about monetary questions - not his area of expertise... Making Public non-profit central bank creating non-profit money is essential for any positive social transformation!
I'm laughing at some of Prof Harvey's reactions
At 26:00 the off-shore wind farm in Brighton is discussed.
In recent years the skyline in Brighton has been decimated by (a) the off-shore wind farm and (b) the "i360 tower", a giant observational tower that you can take a ride up a bit like the London Eye, known locally as "the cock and ring" or "iSore".
Unlike the i360 tower, which is a purposeless financial and architectural failure (and much worse than a failure -- a mutilation of a beautiful skyline), at least the wind farm has some function. But why would you choose to put 100+ wind turbines on one of the most historic and densely populated coastlines in the country? I have no objections to wind farms in general, but why not put them somewhere at least vaguely out of the way?
Seize the means of production
In other words Star Trek.
15:41 she was asked 2 yes or no questions, I think at around 18:20 she had completely forgotten why she was even still speaking looool
#QuestionsNotStatements
democratically controlled open source platform cooperatives (as briefly mentioned) is the most promising solution to the problem of AI, Uber, Facebook, Google etc (and society more generally tbh). If democratic and open source, funding could be provided by various international governments or non government groups. For example, there's no reason various taxi unions from around the world don't chip in and make an open source Uber alternative. Perhaps with municipal transport bodies such (Transport for London) could be involved too. This is how to do modern socialism. Attempts are being made to form these, they need all the help they get, its gonna be grassroots initiated. Later lefty governments may help, and Ihopefully charities / NGO's would catch on, but likely only after the concept is proved. The alternative is dystopia of an all powerful all knowing corporate oligopoly.
Harrison Ford-like guy on the panel is not quite right
Basic education is going down the drain. The mediator says in 1:03 that energy for the home will be stored on the phone. :)
okay paul mason doesn't understand AI. all hail david harvey though
Of course ‘Alice' has red hair...
Man, I really had hopes for Mason when I picked up PostCapitalism. Reading it after having studied Marx extensively I can't help but roll my eyes at least one time every minute. Really lousy work.
Some people's Post-capitalism bears an uncanny resemblance to Capitalism-Capitalism.
What about massive gender inequality ...?
profiteering capitalist backed universal basic income, is as good as low wages.
would the government spend more than what it gets?
no. same story, just different name.
the host looks like a 'gatekeeper'
"What's really mad sad & bad!! 😢☠️ is ..A load of over 50's plus in the U.k. has put the con-vat'party🚬📉📊💷💵💶💴💸💳💹 (thanks to ukip ualt-right-wing-nuts) To be very honest this will go nowhere for the next 4yrs⏳ ..And we still gotta another 4months of this yr 2020🚬 on the clock 😢🕰
"STAY SAFE 😷💜
d 🤕💜🗺🇪🇺
this boy and girl are wasting time....