“A powerful and persuasive explanation of why capitalism can’t create jobs or generate incomes for a majority of humanity.”

– Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

“An excellent, insightful account of the contours of our present labor crisis. Benanav articulately makes the case for a post-scarcity future.”

– Robert Skidelsky, biographer of John Maynard Keynes

“A highly quantitative analysis of the nature of contemporary unemployment flowers into something quite different and unexpected: a qualitative argument for the invention of new collective capacities in a world where work is no longer central to social life.”

– Kristin Ross, author of Communal Luxury

“A rare book that manages to soberly assess the contemporary landscape while keeping a clear eye on our utopian horizons. This is an important intervention into current discussions around technology and work—and a must-read for anyone who believes capitalist decay is not the only future.”

– Nick Srnicek, author of Platform Capitalism

“A highly rigorous, carefully evidenced, and extremely convincing analysis of technology and the future of work. One of my favourite post-work texts of recent years.”

– Helen Hester, author of Xenofeminism

“I devoured Benanav’s new book in one sitting. An antidote to the flood of fantasy-as-scholarship in automation. Highly recommend.”

– Ashok Kumar, author of Monopsony Capitalism

“Benanav dissects and disproves the idea that automation is eradicating work … We don’t need to wait for robots to do all the work; we can collectively decide what we need, then plan the economy to achieve it.”

– Paris Marx, Passage

A consensus-shattering account of automation technologies and their effect on workplaces and the labor market

Silicon Valley titans, politicians, techno-futurists, and social critics have united in arguing that we are on the cusp of an era of rapid technological automation, heralding the end of work as we know it. But does the muchdiscussed “rise of the robots” really explain the long-term decline in the demand for labor? Automation and the Future of Work uncovers the deep weaknesses of twenty-first-century capitalism and the reasons why the engine of economic growth keeps stalling. Equally important, Benanav goes on to salvage from automation discourse its utopian content: the positive vision of a world without work. What social movements, he asks, are required to propel us into post-scarcity if technological innovation alone can’t deliver it? In response to calls for a permanent universal basic income that would maintain a growing army of redundant workers, he offers a groundbreaking counterproposal.

Order now from Verso or Amazon.

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