ROGER D HARRIS and SARA FLOUNDERS challenge propaganda against the blockaded socialist island
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Does automation spell the end of capitalism?
Capitalism will not 'automatically' morph into some 'postcapitalist' or socialist system due to technology replacing the human workforce. As the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY explains, ending capitalism will require a conscious, collective action on the part of 'the many' — the working class
THE END OF WORK? Labour leader Keir Starmer meets a fleet of Starship delivery robots at a Co-op in Milton Keynes, during a visit to discuss technological innovation during Covid-19
Marx and Engels incorporated in their writings a critique of the way that capitalism destroys the environment but it is only in the last half century that environmental concerns have become an integral part of the fight for socialism, writes the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
The racist Republican tactic of redistricting to keep Trump and his base in power is turning the clock back to the 1950s, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
With a political crisis engulfing the Labour Party, the case for PR is back on the agenda. TONY BURKE argues trade unions must now engage on changes to our voting system
YVETTE WILLIAMS and JOE DELANEY dissect the institutional dawdling that rubbed salt into the Grenfell open wounds prolonging the agony of survivors
The HS2 debacle exposes what happens when public infrastructure is handed to private contractors – especially when set against China’s state-led high-speed rail success, says CARLOS MARTINEZ
AUTOMATION — defined as the introduction of a technology whereby a process (physical or informational) can be accomplished with significantly reduced human agency — has deep historic roots.
Two millennia ago Heron of Alexandria invented a combustion engine to open temple doors so that onlookers would believe the gods were moving them without human agency. But fire power was not used for any productive purpose — why bother to automate when you have slaves to do the work?
Under capitalism, by contrast, the displacement or routinisation of human labour in search of profit has been a prime driver of innovation. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels emphasised the dynamism of technology within capitalism.
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