#exterminism

25 Days of Socialist Christmas

Day 22: Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come book recommendation — Four Futures by Peter Frase

In this page-turner, Peter Frase predicts the collapse of the capitalist system into one of four new economic models, each with its own compelling chapter. Arranging the four along an x- and y-axis describing equality/hierarchy and abundance/scarcity, he gives hopeful and cynical views of the future and emphasizes the role of choice at the crossroads. Climate change and automation contradictions are named as two of the most important looming phenomena in this book and he uses those concepts throughout. The four futures include:

Communism: Equality and abundance. A world beyond classes and money, where all people have their essential needs met, where gift economies thrive and reputations are the only “hierarchies” remaining.

Rentism: Hierarchy and abundance. A world defined by hyper-strict enforcement of intellectual property and copyright, where barriers and poverty are upheld even when 3D printers and open-sourcing could easily meet the needs of the many.

Socialism: Equality and scarcity. A world ravaged by the worst effects of climate change, where much work needs to be done but communities come together to celebrate the solarpunk ideal.

Exterminism: Hierarchy and scarcity. A world of openly fascist violence inflicted by the powerful onto the powerless, where limited automation produces just enough to feed the ruling class yet still renders the working class economically-redundant.

The choice is clear: socialism or barbarism! I’ve read this book several times over the last couple years and I love it. Hopefully y’all will too.

In this week's readings of the second half of Peter Frase's Four Futures, we see the possibilities of two types of economic futures: one in which socialism equally distributes a world of dwindling resources, and one in which the lack of resources are distributed to the top in a future called 'exterminism'. Peter Frase cautions his readers that, while these futures are not necessarily accurate in their predictions, "we should be particularly concerned with the road leading toward these utopias and dystopias, rather than the precise nature of the final destination" (145). Within these two futures are relevant discussions of what happens when the abundance that Western society enjoys is cut short, and which responds to a lack of limitless energy and an ever-increasing population. Exploring the implications of socialism versus a capitalism that is taken to the limits of wealth concentration is useful for fleshing out the present situation. As human beings, we either address the problems that climate change and automation present us together, or we allow the bourgeoisie to decide our fate.

           One issue that is a pressing matter is the present state of capitalist affairs, which seems to be zooming forward towards solutions that favor the future of exterminism. Frase uses the film Elysium to illustrate that what happens when you have a combination of hierarchy and scarcity "is that it makes the great mass of people superfluous from the standpoint of the ruling elite" (123). This results in a dystopia where the bourgeoisie are protected from the riff-raff underneath (usually it is a height relationship like Ballard's High Rise and Elysium's Space/Earth dichotomy), and where security is enforced and funded by the state to protect the rich from the poor. In our current situation, we are walking a fine line between all of these futures; however, this future seems worse when we view the increasing wealth inequality, the dwindling of precious resources as a result of climate change, and the advances in technology that almost "require" people to have a smartphone. Social mobility is a part of this discussion of exterminism, and it factors into Frase's critique because it is the method by which capitalism advances into popular use and into the modern advancement of technology.

           In the future Frase describes, technology could be used to further exclude the poor through the consistent increases in wealth inequality, combined with the security measures surrounding the monitoring and use of this technology. For one example, Amazon's new launch of Amazon Go eliminates the need for a staff that double-checks consumers' carts. The setup features a QR code scanner that is hooked up to a turnstile (similar to one you would see on a metro). Once you scan the code linked to your Amazon Go app, the turnstile allows entry, while hundreds of cameras running algorithms monitor your activity. While this heavy monitoring may seem sinister, it runs with near-field communications technologies to "know" what you take off the shelves, automatically adding it to your account and charging you upon exit (so no need for a cashier). This type of technology, according to Bryan Turner, exacerbates the problems with the fact that we live in an 'enclave society,'" that we "inhabit an order in which 'goverments and other agencies seek to regulate spaces and, where necessary, to immobilize flows of people, goods and services' by means of 'enclosure" (Frase 128). This type of security seems natural to those benefitting from the convenience of automation that this technology provides. In fact, technology like this could reduce costs due to the store's lowered overhead costs (staffing, security, shrinkage of inventory, etc.,); however, if the beneficiaries are limited to the bourgeoisie, we are within the 'enclave society' in which no one can cheat the system.

           On the other side of this discussion, Frase thinks about the idea of living in a world where the bourgeoisie is levelled-out through necessity. The socialist future of limited resources looks at the idea that we would live in "an egalitarian society that must work together to rebuild its relationship to nature" (Frase 92). It seems that we are also walking a fine line between this future (although not close enough) with open source projects; however, we are not quite there because many of these open source projects require funding or incentive of some sort besides simple credit for intellectual property (as in last week's discussion). We are currently living in the society where wealthy corporations are taking creative people's work and claiming it as their own intellectual property. What we need to avoid the above technological catastrophe is an open source for both science and technology, combined with a type of hierarchy that Frase mentions in Chapter 1. The hierarchy that could be created within a socialist world like this could be one of STEM prestige. Frase claims that, in a world that is ecologically doomed, "[t]he real question is not whether human civilization can survive ecological crises, but whether all of us can survive it together, in some reasonably egalitarian way" (97). It is interesting to see what kinds of socialist business models could arise (if they would look like the "Ecological Reconstruction Corps"), or what technologies would arise out of the sheer numbers of people thinking collectively.

 Note: The video on Open Source Projects on GitHub is just a small insight from the former CEO of GitHub, Chris Wanstrath. In this video, he has his doubts about the potentials for open source projects and stumbles a bit through the possibilities versus the reality. It is interesting stuff.

 Sources:

 Frase, Peter. Four Futures: Life After Capitalism. Verso Publishing, Brooklyn, NY. 2016. Print.

   Amazon Go Promotional Video:

https://youtu.be/NrmMk1Myrxc

  Open Source Projects on GitHub (CEO Chris Wanstrath):

Must be because Capitalist societies were spreading misinformation during the two Red Scares.

“I don't want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share.”-Stephen King

As stated in many of my previous posts, capitalism opens up the doors for many of our existing social inequities dealing with race, gender, sex, and class. Our capitalistic political system in the United States specifically works to permanently hinder and oppress many groups such as racial minorities, women, queer and trans communities, and impoverished communities in order to permanently elevate the elite 1%. In his book Four Futures, Peter Frase discusses several speculative alternatives to transition into a post-capitalistic society. In my last post, I discussed Communism and one of its possible downsides. I would like to ponder one of Frase’s darker alternatives— one that no individual who is a part of the working class would like to see unfold— Exterminism.

Frase imagines a future where automation is the main means of labor production, hierarchy is still intact, and resources are scarce, therefore making the human working class simultaneously obsolete and dangerous to the ruling elite. He poses the question, “So what happens if the masses are dangerous but are no longer a working class, and hence no value to the rulers? Someone will eventually get the idea that it would be better to get rid of them” (Frase 124). In a world where the exploitation of the working labor, this class would be perceived as an inconvenience to the elite class because its members could potentially demand more power. In a hierarchal society, the solution to this problem would be extermination. I am aware this idea should seem very fictional and outlandish; “Exterminism as a solution to prevent egalitarianism? No way!” Unfortunately, I see this postcapitalistic alternative as a realistic future, especially when considering the history of the enslavement and violence against African Americans in the United States.

The U.S. institution of slavery exploited, abused, and dehumanized millions of African Americans for over 200 years. African Americans proved to be the working labor class in the U.S., especially in the American South, in which individuals were forced into unpaid labor. The unpaid and cheap labor African Americans provided allowed the U.S. to flourish agriculturally, however, when slavery ended African Americans suddenly became a threat to many Southern whites, who now viewed them as invaluable and a threat to their financial pockets. As a result, U.S. policies associated with the black codes and Jim Crow were enforced as an attempt to subdue the social mobility of African Americans. To make matters worse, in an attempt to eradicate the black population, Southern Caucasians began lynching African Americans in order to maintain their superior status in U.S. society and erase any threat they posed to their social mobility. According to the NAACP, between 1882 and 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred throughout the U.S. The black population accounted for over half of the lynchings (72.2%) of individuals who were lynched (source). Obviously, black Americans were lynched by white Americans for a number of reasons, one of them being to “protect white women.” Nonetheless, it proves impossible to dispute the economical threat the flourishing black population held to white Southerners.

(source)

In terms of contemporary society, Frase acknowledges that, “In the United States, the willingness to countenance the elimination of unruly surplus populations is tightly intertwined with racism, though it is unquestionably a class phenomenon as well” (Frase 135). Racially targeted phenomena such as mass incarceration and police brutality against black and brown (Hispanic-Americans) Americans have not only prevented their social mobility, but have also taken innocent lives from these groups. These horrendous occurrences have been revealed with the popularization of social media networks. In spite of this, meaningful change has still not been enacted to directly fix the problem.