Written by Aakash
A coworker and I were discussing the state and its political parties earlier, and our discussion eventually moved on to the possibility of a class revolution. They debated with me that it would be impossible to achieve an overall social and class consciousness among the working class, which means that there must be an eminent and clever leader in whom the people can put their trust. As an anarchist, I agree with the argument to some extent. There must be one leader, either a responsible volunteer or leadership being handed over to someone on a rotational basis, to make sure that the social order is actually social. To clarify my unclear sentence, I'd like to quote Noam Chomsey's thoughts on authority as an Anarchist:
"That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met."
But again, the underlying subject of their argument was the pursuit of freedom through representative democracy. Instead of engaging in the typical debate over whether the Marxist-Leninist approach can genuinely lead to freedom, I then debated with their perspective. I decided to do so because they themselves agreed that all states and all political parties are obligated to stoop low under given circumstances. (I would further blame the greed that people develop when they are granted authority.)
The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.
(Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels from the letter ‘Strategy and Tactics of the Class Struggle’)
Concept of the Commune
Karl Marx and Peter Kropotkin were my introductions to anarchism as a theoretical framework. As things stand, an anarcho-syndicalist society is what I envision as the perfect society to emerge from the post-class revolution. I value the concept of the commune, a decentralized governing body that maintains social order and the allocation of means of production, which emphasizes the individual's ability to govern themselves rather than power being handed over to a person or a sector for the sake of demand regulation.
The following paragraph is based on a utopian regime in which the working class has been freed from meaningless jobs (for example, brokering) and the accumulation of riches through the capital.
Let us say that it takes 20 people to build a 100-flat apartment in 50 days with 8-10 hours of labor a day; Under a cooperative commune, 100 people will gather together and agree to contribute 4 hours of labor a day for which they will get a flat in return, plus the work will be done in a less pressurizing and less time-consuming manner.
For say,
20 people x 8 hours a day x 50 days = work done = 8000 labour hour
100 people x 4 hours a day x (x) = 8000 labour hour
derives to,
x = 20 days.
This is a hazy calculation that excludes multiple scenarios of "lack of solidarity" among commune members, i.e., the working class themselves. In his writings "The Conquest of a Bread" and "Mutual Aid," Peter Kropotkin proposes a number of strategies for establishing a commune. I suggest everyone who reads this, to read those books as well in order to fully grasp how such a commune might withstand conflicts amongst various working-class divisions.
The means of production being the collective work of humanity, the product should be the collective property of the race. Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth.
(From Peter Kropotkin’s ‘The conquest of bread’)
AI replacing labour
For several months now, especially after the emergence of effective AI channels like as Chat GPT, we have all been concerned about AI taking our jobs. Of course, for the time being, any new scientific innovation will end up as a terrifying villain for the working class. For example, many people whose primary source of income was washing clothes for various households have lost their jobs due to the advancement of washing machines. This is definitely an awful situation.
On the other hand, this illustrates one of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism. Profit is the ultimate goal of capitalism, hence profit comes before anything else. Any subsidies or benefits provided to employees exist for one reason: labour is the most valuable asset that a private sector could ever own. As a result, no private entity would risk the loss of labour. The prolonged struggles of working-class unions, which also serve as a line of defence when things go too far in favour of the capitalist sector, have culminated in this slim victory for us.
Labour is the source of all wealth, the political economists assert. And it really is the source – next to nature, which supplies it with the material that it converts into wealth.
(Friedrich Engels in his article ‘The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man’)
In such a scenario, no private entity would lean towards replacing manual labour with Artificial Intelligence if it did not benefit in terms of profit capital. However, it is obvious that spending on AIs will result in more profit for the private organisation, thus many have already begun laying off employees. This is certainly a terrible thing, but it will expose the contradictions in the capitalist system and lead to a class war because people will be so radicalised by the frustrations of poverty. This is exactly what Karl Marx would have expected to happen at the end of the industrial revolution as he wrote:
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
The class war will either result in a communist utopia or will leave us in ashes. In the case of the utopia becoming reality (which I really hope will happen), we can then use the advancements of science to repair the damages capitalism has done to this mankind. We can build the same 100-flat apartment in the same 20-day time frame but with just minutes of labour as AI will help us serve the rest of the required labor. This time, we will be happy that AI is replacing our labor.
