When the personal computer revolution started in the early 1980s, Sinclair User magazine ran a cartoon featuring an astronaut, reclining in full space suit regalia, observing a (CRT) computer screen emblazoned with the words, ‘WORK, four letter word, no longer in polite use.’
The themes of technological advancement and the future of work are central to this text. As is, famously, its demand for a universal basic income (on top of benefits).
Inventing the Future begins with the failings of the left and social democratic movements in recent times, noting the successes there have been but gloomily concluding what we all know. It has not been a great few years for us.
The book attempts to answer the question, ‘What do we do in a post-capitalist world?’ It outlines the historic events that have brought the global economy to where it is and proposes a number of policy approaches that the left should consider if it is to have any hope of regaining relevance or power.
Srnicek and Williams identify the influence of ‘folk politics’ and ‘horizontalism’ as key reasons for the failure of the left to achieve greater success, encompassing the Occupy movement and other international efforts in their scope.
Economic historians will not be alone in engaging with chapters on the triumph of neo-liberalism over (allegedly) full-employment corporate capitalism and the reasons for it, that bounce along in a suitably depressing but compelling style, a bit like watching re-runs of general elections from years past on BBC Parliament and willing the result to be different (do not tell me you have never done that).
There is some terrific and collectively embarrassing detail on the open-mouthed failure of the Keynesians to explain what was happening to the stagflating economy of the 1970’s, leaving the intellectual airways open for the Mont Pelerin Society project that triumphed and became hegemony.
The bulk of the book is a manifesto for what the left needs to do to both win power and the ongoing argument. You will be delighted to learn that this is comprehensively analysed. However, you will be disappointed to learn that the authors warn this will be neither easy, nor swift. The lessons drawn plan for the long game, rather than the next electoral cycle; which is handy, given where we are. Plenty of examples and political discussion will keep readers turning the pages and raising questions as well.
At core, the vision of this book is that the left needs to own the future, like it used to – describing a world that is better, that we can believe in, pin our flag to and be uplifted by. Dare I say it, that we can buy into?
The authors contend that the economic disaster that awaits most of the population as neoliberalism continues its parasitic burrowing into our aspiring conscious certainties can only be averted by grasping what the future will bring anyway. Therefore: increase the pace of automation and extend it beyond just that which is cheaper than employing labour; reform the working week to reduce the amount of ‘always-on’ work; implement a universal basic income from the fruits of the economic gains made by automating production; and get a grip on the work ethic. Then we start to see proper freedom, the ability to define our lives by what we wish to do rather than what we are compelled to do.
Should you read this book? Yes, you should. It is a good place to start in thinking about what the left needs to do to get out of the hole we are in – and because now, of all times now, we are in such need of ideas for how to move forward progressively that agree with them or not, Srnicek and Williams will give you something to chew on that may make you smile as well as frown. That is welcome indeed.
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Matthew Turmaine is former parliamentary candidate for Watford. He tweets @turmaine
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Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams
Verso | 256pp | £9.09
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