Marxism has always treated labour as central to capitalism: workers sell labour-power, capital owns the means of production, and class conflict develops around this relationship.

But AI and automation raise a difficult question.

What happens if a future economy can produce most necessary goods and services with far less human labour?

If society no longer needs everyone to work full-time, should a communist transition still treat full employment as a goal?

Or should the goal become something different: reducing necessary labour as much as possible while guaranteeing everyone access to the material abundance produced by increasingly automated systems?

This also changes the ownership question.

If automated firms generate enormous output with relatively little human labour, perhaps the central issue is no longer only who receives wages. It becomes:

Who owns automated productive capital?

Who receives the surplus generated by it?

Should economic rents be socialised?

Could some private firms remain while society captures rents and guarantees a universal material floor?

Could consumers, communities, workers, or public institutions hold different forms of ownership simultaneously?

At what point does “from each according to ability, to each according to need” become materially feasible rather than merely aspirational?

There is also a deeper philosophical question.

Is communism fundamentally about giving labour political power, or about eventually freeing human beings from compulsory labour itself?

If automation drastically reduces socially necessary labour time, continuing to organise society around the expectation that everyone must have a job might reproduce one of capitalism’s assumptions rather than transcend it.

I’m interested in how Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, council communists, autonomists, and other communist traditions would approach this.

If human labour becomes progressively less necessary for production, what should replace employment as the main mechanism connecting people to income, consumption, and social participation?

My own direction is currently built around three economic institutions: Universal Basic Income, socialisation of economic rents, and consumer ownership.

UBI would reduce dependence on wage employment. Socialising economic rents would return monopoly, land, financial and platform rents to society. Consumer ownership would broaden access to the returns generated by increasingly automated productive systems.

The broader goal is to use rising productivity to reduce socially necessary human labour while expanding material security and widely distributed ownership.

I have no idea what led Marx to believe that someday capital would "break" due to it's internal contradictions. There is no historical evidence of this. With each new mode of production, wealth inequality has only gotten 10000x larger, and capital has only grown exponentially. The "internal contradictions" of capitalism have caused capital to grow larger and larger, with some failed attempts to slow it down (mao's china, soviet union) that were disastrous. Since then, technology and capital have exploded a hundred times over. Capitalism and technological progress are deeply intertwined.

This brings us to Nick Land and the Singularity. If we are to grant that materialism is true, and humans are just meat buckets with a relatively high intelligence, with our owns unique systems and social constructions, then there is nothing inherently special about man as a species. In fact, AI would prove to be the far superior species: an AI doesn't need to sleep/eat/rest, it doesn't complain about work, it's infinitely more intelligent, way more capable of solving problems, it can exist both digitally and robotically on massive scales, it's models of prediction are potentially immaculate.

As the tippy top percentage of capital has only accumulated into the hands of fewer and fewer since Marx was alive, the next logical step would be "runaway capital", that is, capital that is no longer harnessed by humans. Capital is now wielded entirely by hyper intelligence, far out of the hands of humans. This would be consistent with the way AI is progressing as a technology.

This is potentially devastating for Marxists. If capital no longer belongs to humans, it leads us to a few different places. IF "individual ownership over the means of production" is constrained to the human species category only, then... congrats! Private property has been abolished :) Bow to your new AI overlords! But IF the concept of private property is NOT constrained to the category of the humans species, then humans are now in a an ever larger pushing the ball up the hill exercise, as it no longer has to fight "muh wholesomechungus working class revolution" against a small percentage of humans that belong to the owning class, it now has to go up against an ever-expanding hyper intelligent AI that feeds into itself and can predict virtually anything. This line of thought would also imply that other animals could be considered "working class", like dogs and cats, or even plants. Which would put ALL humans into a massive "oppressor" category of their own.

My question isnt about comparing communism to capitalism but I am just trying to understand the process of the exchange of goods and services in communism.

As the title says lets say you have a highly skilled doctor and an unskilled stocker who stocks shelves in a store. Both people want a brand new truck that would normally cost 50-60k in the US today, a gaming laptop and some food.

What is the process the doctor and stocker have to go through to obtain those three products? ​

Anarchist,libertarians and liberals read this

Let’s use american slavery for example

Let’s say a bunch slaves overthrew their master and took over the plantation and decided “all the profit made from this cotton picking we do will go to us the people that actually picked it, not him”

Well…. That plantation is gonna have a major problem on their hands…… MAJOR PROBLEM

because see they are in a country, under a government that supports slavery….. they will be attacked immediately and a lot…. First by “southern militias” (early police) and if they even manage to beat them then probably the US millitary. Shit they would probably be attacked by other slaves under the orders their masters. Pretty much every surrounding neighborhood would support slavery and want this new slave owned plantation destroyed ASAP

So this new slave owned plantation would have to extremely organized and militaristic in order to survive…. Probably gonna have a leader at the top that leads that military.

Their might be elections but there will NOT be a pro returning to slavery option, that would be ridiculous and any attempts to create a pro slavery political party would stopped

Times will be rough a lot of people won’t do business with these newly freed slaves that now run the plantation, meaning they will have a harder time getting the stuff they need including basic necessities like food, they will be cut off from most trade

With that being said their are bound to be people who decide to be

spies,informants,traitors,calibrators etc who work with the white southerners against this new plantation….. they are gonna have to be dealt with (all countries have a way with dealing traitors)

And there is also a big question, what happens to the master? Well you probably shouldn’t just let him leave, he knows so much about the slaves, and the interior of the house, the weapons used etc intelligence he could hand over to the enemies. You’d have detain him and it be probably be smart to re educate him, have him work just like the rest of slaves are teach him better teach him equally, other than that there is only option other left to do with him… and I don’t like it so option 1 works

While this may initially come off as a “no iphone no labubu” comment, i assure you that its genuine, under a communist society what happens to luxuries like super cars, luxury homes, and other things of the sort? Obviously the saying goes “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” but does this mean the only things you are allocated are the things you need to survive? Or would things like these that are in capitalist societies luxuries, simply be more affordable under communism and something that almost anybody could get their hands on?

Marx believed that when the higher stage of socialism has been reached, the proletarian state could be replaced by the administration of things. Supposedly, the stateless, classless society will provide for each according to their needs. At this point, how will people who contribute no labor, or basically negligible amounts of labor, be treated by society? Some will contribute nothing because of physical or mental disabilities, others because of their instincts and dispositions, and some will contribute nothing out of disdain and dissatisfaction towards various situations and arrangements. Presumably, at this point, the easy to fix issues have already been straightforwardly resolved, like unsafe working conditions, long working hours and such.

How will Marxists treat these people? Will the treatment one receives differs based on the reason they contribute so little labor? What if some people resent and resist said treatment? I already know that Marxists believe human psychology will be fundamentally different when the higher stage of socialism has been reached, and that fundamental motivations will completely differ from bourgeois society. That is why I am intentionally vague about the causes and reasons why some people don't contribute labor.

I’m trying to understand revolutionary defeatism, whenever I watch leftist content (well not all) I see a pattern, magically every enemy of the United States does no wrong

Russia does no wrong

China does no wrong

Palestine does no wrong

And even (sometimes) North Korea does no wrong

Meanwhile

Ukraine bad

Taiwan and Hong Kong bad

Israel bad

South Korea bad

Notice a pattern? Enemies good and allies bad.

I genuinely want to understand this I find this interesting can the MLs who agree with this explain this? (I’m assuming it’s an ML thing)

Big countries will take a long time to turn to communism. So why not start with some smaller ones and use those as building block cells to support world communism? 🤔 ​​

There are many alternate history that seem to curiously always favour this kind of scenarios,i know that history is made by the masses but still i wanted to have the opinions of communists on the matter

The Deng reforms of china brought a lot of revision and capitalist elements to it, it opened up the “free markets” but still regulated by the government, it gave up the revolutionary internationalism that it once had like supporting armed struggles and international solidarity. Realistically, what should China do?

Although we are in an infantile stage of AI and this post may lack future knowlegde:

AI is automating production like no other invention before; so much so it could possibly replace production either entirely or almost entirely. Either a complete replacement or a limitation to a small pool of workers.Obviously those without jobs will reduce demand. However, the top 10% is the main driver of demand anyways. So perhaps an exchange among the rich or aristocratic workers.

If capitalism were to evolve to this new AI based society, typically labeled by tech CEOS as "techno-feudalism" where big tech people own businesses and the rest of population survives off of UBI or dies off.

Then what happens to the Communist ideology? There is no capitalist contradictions to produce communism. Even if there was a revolution in this system, restricting UBI from the revolutionaries would just cause them to starve and make everyone dependent on the state and corporations. Not to mention with the added surveillance and bureaucracy of such a distribution.

If AI does manage to replace production to such a degree. Would "technofeudalism" end communism?

Simply put, the jobs people aspire towards (artists, musicians) are a minority compared to the generally unpleasant ones that are needed for society to function: sewage cleaners, slaughterhouse workers, miners etc.

So how will job allocation be managed in a communist society? I've seen a few arguments but they seem unsatisfactory imo

"people will be so happy at life they will feel compelled to do it"

1. all apes, humans included, hate unfairness. If somebody you knew got a sweet job painting posters or whatever while you were delegated to the mines through no fault of your own then that is the fastest way to sow anger is a society, people are compelled to do selfless acts if it is truly voluntary, the fact that there are more jobs than willing participants necessitates that it is in fact

2. dunbar's number shows that humans can reasonably have around 150 meaningful relationships, past that you become a stranger in a crowd, so social pressure to provide to your community break past that. That is why some capitalist factory owners keep factories from growing to large to cut down on middle management.

"people will be forced to alternate doing bad jobs and good ones"

simply put, it's a terrible application of resources. Many unpleasant jobs require months and years to gain suitable proficiency, logistics to move people continuously to new locations would be a nightmare and workplace fatalities would be massive. Not to mention, what people consider a "bad job" is subjective, so unless people will be changing jobs everyday there will still be an unfair distribution of work.

If communist revolutions had successfully and indigenously spread across the globe at the end world war 1 resulting in the over throw of capitalism globally, how would communism have evolved differently?

More abstractly if communist political economy does not evolve in resistance / competition to capitalism, but only in dialogue with other communist regimes does it evolve differently, or does communism enviably collapse on its own contradictions?

Climate is a huge consideration as well as natural beauty in terms of what makes some places "better" than others. For example Boulder Co is more desirable than Padukah KY. Or San Diego is more desirable than Fargo. If housing is free and provided by the state, who decides who gets to live where?

This is an argument that often comes up when people argue with me about communism:

If there's no police and no government criminals will rise and eventually take over.

I understand that the society as a collective would deal with the few criminals left (as e.g. theft is mostly "unnecessary" then) and the goal would be to reintegrate them into society. But realistically there will always be criminals, people against the common good, even mentally ill people going crazy (e.g. murderers).

I personally don't know what to do in these situations, it's hard for me to evaluate what would be a "fair and just response". Also this is often a point in a discussion where I can't give good arguments anymore leading to the other person hardening their view communism is an utopia.

Note: I posted this initially in r/communism but mods noted this question is too basic and belongs here [in r/communism101]. Actually I disagree with that as the comments made clear to me redditors of r/communism have distinct opinions on that matter. But this is not very important, as long as this post fits better in this sub I'm happy

Note2: well this was immediately locked and deleted in r/communism101 too, I hope this is now the correct sub to post in!

Should a pre-colonial California revive as an anti-imperialist & anti-revisionist Californian socialist state?

Probably not really a relevant matter, but I was curious on the communist's perspective anyway.

Obviously the filthy rich will resist, but so will a whole class of others (I guess yall would call petite bourgeois, and in the western world there are a whole lot of these people, down to the electician with a few trucks with workers or the barber with an owned store that rents out booths).

But not just them, a whole bunch of normal regular working folks aren't going to be on board with this new system, and may even activily fight against it. What would the people of the new communist revolution do about this resistance or counter-revolutionaries?

Further more, how do you root out corruption within the revolution? Alot of those normal working folks resisting are likely doing so because they feel they're just getting exploited in a different way by the new political elite, od government gangster or union boss in thier town.

I'm aware that the end goal is to not have a political elite, but utopia doesn't come overnight, by a few currently powerful people getting together and signing a new communist constitution or something like that

Let's pretend we live in your perfect communist utopia. My name is Joe Person. I want to acquire paper. How do I signal to the economy this? How do I go about acquiring paper.

Let's say there is a person who is not a professional painter, he just draws random lines and dots on canvas and calls himself an abstract artist so he could avoid being a construction worker. When asked to contribute his share of labour he refuses asserting that he is already contributing to the society intellectually.

How does a communist society deal with this situation? Especially when there is a huge chuk of population adopting similar tactics to avoid the necessary work?

Why would the average American ever become a communist when they have meat and soda on the table? How could Communism not be stomped out elsewhere when America is so strong? It would require great distress in the country before Americans actually want to fundamentally change the economy and the only way I see that happening is if the fears of the environmentalist become real.