Peter Frase

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world,” the theorist Fredric Jameson has remarked, “than to imagine the end of capitalism.”Jacobin Editor Peter Frase argues that technological advancements and environmental threats will inevitably push our society beyond capitalism, andFour Futures imagines just how this might look. Extrapolating possible futures from current changes the world is now experiencing, and drawing upon speculative fictions to illustrate how these futures might be realized, Four Futures examines communism, rentism, socialism, and exterminism – or in other words, the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if those movements fail.

Visions of the World After Capitalism

Four Futures

chris

Andrew Louis

Liked the framing of the four scenarios; the actual chapters wavered between being too vague or too in the weeds.

Katherine

I appreciate the aim of writing an approachable text but I think that too much depth and analysis was sacrificed to that aim. I felt some of the assumptions made were such glaring oversights it was difficult to really get into these theories. Some good concepts though and a good introductory text

Capitalism is going to end 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 post-capitalist 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.

Life After Capitalism

Nicholas Hanemann

It’s a pretty decent speculative look towards possible outcomes of our present political and ecological situations. Through both historical analysis and critical framings of popular science fiction futures such as the one portrayed in Star Trek, Frase makes his case for these futures without sacrificing depth for accessibility. The second future, the Rentier (sic? Listened, not read) class, was a great discussions of intellectual property outside of the bubble of creative works (I.e. music, literature) in which it is often quarantined.

Sophie Shrimpton

The best bit about this book were the pointers - towards snippets of theory I have reached the same conclusions as, and towards science-fiction to help open up my imagination. 

The scenarios themselves were interesting but nothing new - except for rentism, which highlighted the centrality of IP in preserving power dynamics whereas I usually position it as a marginal problem. 

The author claimed to be creating social science fiction, which this was not. There was no cohesive story or creation of a world, but one core ideal concept with lots of examples from science fiction and nascent forms in our current world. It was a lot of scraps of things brought together under a structure. 

The structure itself assumed full automation, then created a matrix of scarcity-abundance and equality-hierarchy (based on developments in climate change and class struggles). Communism was abundant-equality, rentism was abundant-hierarchy, socialism was scarce-equality, extremism was scarce-hierarchy. Some of the top reviews give comprehensive overviews of the content. 

Audiobook ‘read’ 

Some ideas/examples I enjoyed:
David Brin - is much more interested in exploring possibilities than likelihoods because a great many more things might happen than actually do. It puts our collective action at the centre, while making confident predictions only encourages passivity

Vonnegut - men don't want to be useful, but feel useful. Problem of automation is actually a crisis of male feelings. 

Marx - a realm of necessity (wrestle with nature to fulfil needs through physical labour) and a realm of freedom (exists where realm of necessity ends, you can do what you want). Realm of necessity exists in all economic structures but allocated differently - in socialism it is rationally and democratically allocated rather than operating at whim of market.

Marx - told in classroom Marx venerated labouring and work, and it is the only place where humans defined and realised themselves. Refers to purposive self-activity, rather than wage labour. Keeping the lights on is different - merely a necessity we must transcend to be truly free. 

Marx - it is possible to erase the line between those who make plans for their own benefit and those who carry them out. Erasing distinction between managers and those who make it run. Erasing distinction between business and collective leisure activity. Labour not just a means of life but becomes life's prime want. So productive humans are liberated from performing involuntary/unpleasant labour. Do things only because it is fulfilling.

Keynes - work would disappear, humans faced with real, permanent problem: how to use freedom from pressing economic cares. How to live wisely, agreeably and well. 

Work can mean three different things. (1) how we earn money to survive (2) activity necessary for continued existence of our society (3) activity that is inherently fulfilling because it gives purpose and meaning to our lives.

Unemployment is unpleasant not because the lack of work, but because of the social stigma. Study showing mental health amongst chronically unemployed people improved dramatically when they became retired, because of a change of social status not of material circumstance or amount of work. 

Strategies that build alternatives to capitalism before it is overturned. To make people independent from capitalism and facilitate organising. E.g. welfare state can decommodify labour (though not entirely until capitalism removed, bc need unemployment to make people take waged jobs).

Andre Gorz (Strategy for Labour) - no need for reform/revolution binary. Can have revolutionary reform that moves towards radical transformation of society through fundamental political and economic changes through modification of relations of power (and reformist reform which subordinate itself to the need of preserving the functioning of the existing system). 

Example of above is UBI. Either, incentivises people not work, undermining the tax base until it is not feasible, prompting revolution. Or, removing the requirement to work to survive means no one takes shit jobs, so wages for shit jobs go up, inducing automation, whereas wages for meaningful jobs go down, as people choose to do them for actualisation, eventually leading to fully automated shit jobs and people autonomously performing jobs that enable actualisation. 

IP makes up 39% of EU GDP, and 90% of exports. In US, 35% of GDP. 

Ecology creates a duality between humans and nature. Implies nature exists in pristine state, and humans must withdraw to save it. This denies human as natural beings inseparably part of nature. 

Human development as not liberation from nature, or a fall from it, but as a process of becoming ever more attached to, and intimate with, nature. 

Markets can be more than ideological subterfuge - they can be limited technologies separable from capitalism. Supported by Trotsky - centralised planning can be supplemented with supply and demand. E.g. LAX Parking - point the market towards a target production limit. Prices vary to accomodate that fixed supply based on varying demand. Only produces equal results if everyone has an equal amount of input/wealth (e.g. an equal ration of money) which they can use to make choices to acquire different goods and services which have different environmental limits attached. 

SWAT teams were deployed for raids at a rate of 100/yr in 1970's, now 100-150/day. 

Bertolt Brecht (To Prosperity) - a revolution against a brutal system could brutalise those who participate in it (or, if you stare into an abyss, the abyss stares back into you).

Four Futures Visions of the World After Capitalism

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